Before entering the Rose of Nothingness installation space, the viewer encounters a constellation of seven intimate works situated in the lobby of Sale D'Armi G.

These conceptual keys to the main installation are distinct verses that articulate the artistic vocabulary of Belu-Simion Fainaru. They offer a moment of quiet calibration, introducing the themes of memory, void and nothingness that unfold in the main hall.

1. In Search of Lost Time, 2023
     mixed media, counter-clockwise clock mechanism

2. Heavens, 2026
      metal, table, 4 chairs

3. Everything is Going to be All Right, 2026
      padlock

4. Mezuzah, 2026
      mixed media, counter-clockwise clock mechanism

5. Jerusalem in a Pocket, 2012
      white sleeve, pocket, Jerusalem soil

6. Black Rose, 2022
      freezer, ice, black rose

7. You Have Always to Start Anew, 1991
      glass, egg, wax, match, paper

In Search of Lost Time, 2023

mixed media, counter-clockwise clock mechanism


Photo: Avital Bar-Shay


The work features a wall-mounted clock whose hands move in the opposite direction to the customary clockwise flow. Intervention in reality, and the possibility of harnessing it into action, recur throughout Belu-Simion Fainaru's oeuvre from the very outset.

The work emphasises the elusive quality of time and the stratified meanings it carries as a subjective state of consciousness shaped by countless personal and environmental factors. Formative dates in a person's life, both individual and national-collective, constitute essential temporal markers.

October 7, 2023, for Fainaru, is a watershed moment between before and after, reinforcing a personal desire to return to the past through imagination and the senses in the face of a continuous, traumatic and nightmarish present. The work's title cites Marcel Proust's eponymous novel, emerging from a non-schematic perception of reality in constant flux, where characters are exposed to abrupt turns and contradictions.

Belu-Simion Fainafu: "The installation relates to the passage of time, offering a journey in search of lost time. What appears as forward motion becomes backward movement. Tangible matter becomes memory. The work alludes to the impossibility of summing up or containing time, in the hope that the end point is also a point that preceded the beginning."

Heavens, 2026

metal, table, four chairs


Photo: Avital Bar-Shay


The work stages an encounter between matter and light. Made of heavy metal, the table and chairs bear the Hebrew letters ש-מ-י-ם (sh–m–y–m, heavens) carved into their surfaces. When light falls from above, another dimension is introduced, and they are revealed as letters of light, subtly echoing a familiar idea in Jewish tradition (e.g. Maimonides) whereby matter alone is incomplete and requires the action of intellect or light to move from potentiality into actuality.

The letters, scattered across the chairs, generate multiple Hebrew combinations, each carrying a different meaning: ש-ם (sh–m – one of the names of God, also denoting name and there), י-ם (y–m, sea), מ-י-ם (m–y–m, water). This recalls the idea of Creation through language as described in the ancient Kabbalistic text Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Creation): reality is generated through combinations of letters, and meaning is not fixed but continuously formed through shifting connections and contexts. The single chair bears a single letter, yet only in the encounter between one person and another, between object and object, do word and meaning emerge.

The light casting the word שמים onto the table emphasises the tension between upper and lower: the firmament is not merely a physical location, but a manifestation of spiritual presence revealed within earthly reality. In this sense, the work proposes a philosophical reading, suggesting that truth resides not only in the fixed structure of things, but also in their interaction—in moments of illumination where what is separated momentarily converges into a unified meaning.

Everything is Going to be All Right, 2026

padlock


Photo: Avital Bar-Shay

The work draws on a familiar practice: lovers fastening a padlock to a bridge as a symbol of an unbreakable bond. This gesture, meant to ‘lock’ love in time and place, is reframed here beyond its original context. The padlock serves not only as a testament to a romantic attachment, but also as a vessel for aspiration, hope, desire and longing; an attempt to ‘anchor’ a wish in the world and leave a tangible trace of an otherwise invisible emotion. The line inscribed on the padlock lends the object an intimate linguistic dimension, at once a declaration and a promise, holding onto the possibility of change and a more hopeful future in a world marked by war and uncertainty.

The simple act of locking evokes fixation and closure, yet remains open to an imagined future, gesturing toward what may still unfold. By displacing the gesture from its romantic context, the work gives material form to unseen desire. It transpires between what has been locked and what seeks to open, tracing the tension between the wish to control the future and an awareness of its fragility.

Mezuzah, 2026

metal, rolled parchment


Photo: Avital Bar-Shay

The work represents a ritual object affixed to the doorpost of Jewish homes, containing a parchment scroll bearing two handwritten Torah passages (Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21): ‘Hear, O Israel’ (Shema Yisrael) and ‘If ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments’ (Vehaya im shamo'a). The mezuzah is placed on the upper part of the right doorpost and traditionally tilted slightly inward. Its exterior case often bears the Hebrew letter Shin (ש), which stands for the Almighty.

Beyond its ritual function, the mezuzah carries a philosophical dimension. Its placement on the threshold, between interior and exterior, renders it a symbol of passage between worlds: between private and public space, between intimacy and social identity. It reminds us that our values do not remain confined within the home, but accompany us as we step into the world.

Contained within the mezuzah are fundamental verses, primarily Shema Yisrael, that emphasise unity, love, and commitment. The mezuzah becomes a cognitive anchor—a daily reminder of faith, identity, and values. In this sense, it may also be construed as a vessel of reflection: a small moment of pause, remembrance, and intentionality within the flow of everyday life.

The idea of unity embedded in the rolled parchment—’the Lord is One’—carries a metaphysical aspiration to perceive reality as an undivided whole, an invitation to a life of intrinsic and extrinsic harmony. At the same time, the mezuzah is attributed with a protective function—not only physical protection, but also moral and spiritual safeguarding: the creation of a domestic space governed by dignity and justice.

The home is ‘protected’ when it is shaped by such principles. The act of affixing the mezuzah is a simple physical act, yet charged with significance. It articulates a key idea in Jewish philosophy: the union of matter and spirit, the mundane and the sublime, transforming the mezuzah into a quiet declaration that home is not merely a physical structure, but a realm of identity and ethical orientation.