Train / Lali Tsipi Michaeli

Train At the age of 7 I left Georgia as an immigrant to Israel with my parents and two brothers. We arrived at the train-station with the feeling of a one-way ticket. We travelled until Moscow and before passing one whole day and night in a magnificent hotel we took another train to Vienna from there we took a plane to Israel. We landed on another planet. It was mid- January 1972. Since then from my point of view trains have been symbols of departure. Of self-analysis. Of new life. Of loss. Not to mention the Jewish DNA that runs on the collective memory of the train-tracks or vice-versa. There is nothing for me that symbolizes so strongly the wandering the displacement and human sadness like the train. Even if it's a new train racing along tracks raised on columns to allow the world's other creatures non-stop transport. When I want to bring these things to light in my memory everything changes to a collage of the trains I've seen in my life, in reality as well as in films, documentaries or art- house. The train has turned into trainness and I don't know to whom I belong. translated from Hebrew by: Alexa Christopher-Daniels in English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw16nGcLfHE in Hebrew (my voice) http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3923511,00.html