Assaf Hinden

Assaf Hinden (b.1988), lives and works in Tel Aviv. He obtained his Master’s degree from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp in 2021 and his Bachelor’s degree from The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 2016 (both magna cum laude).

Recent grants and fellowships include The Ministry of Culture Young Artist Award (ISR, 2023), Asylum Arts Grant (NYC, 2022), ARCAthens 2022 Visual Art Fellow (NYC-GR), and ‘The Roger De Conynck Photographer Prize’ (King Baudouin Foundation, Belgium 2021).

Alongside showcasing his solo exhibitions at The Lobby Art Space (‘Prefcae’, 2024), CACR, Israel (‘Salon and Darkroom’, 2023), Artspace TLV (‘Relative Humidity’, 2018), and WTA Gallery, Barcelona (‘Remodeling’, 2017), his works were featured in numerous institutions, e.g: Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH, 22), The Benaki Museum (Athens photo festival 22), ‘Photoforum Pasquart’ (CH, 22), ‘The Ramat Gan Museum of Art’ (ISR, 22), ‘Photo Museum of Antwerp’ (FOMU, BE 21), Hybrid Art Fair (Madrid, 2019), ‘Braverman Gallery’ (TLV, 2019), Rathaus-Galerie Reinickendorf (Berlin, 2019) and ‘Fresh Paint Art Fair’ (TLV, 2017 and 2018).

Hinden has participated in several artist residencies, including MeetFactory, Prague CZ (2023), ARCAthens (Athens GR, 2022), Lucy Art Residency (Kavala GR, 2021), and Werner Thoni Art Space in Barcelona, Spain (2017). He has delivered lectures and seminars at esteemed institutions such as The Bezalel Academy’s photography department (JLM, 2023), Lecture and Crtis at Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA, GR), Lecture at EMST (National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, GR), Soho House TLV (Artist Talk with David Adika), FOTODOK (Netherlands), ‘Dialogues’ at MISC Gallery (Athens), and Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law: ‘Looted Art’ course (Prof. Liora Bilsky).

Also a freelance curator, he has curated a range of projects and exhibitions, including ‘Text(ile)’ (co-curated with Camea Smith, Meron Capital 2023), ‘Last Call’ (Indie Gallery, 2020), ‘No Rainbows Without Rain’ (Fundraising exhibition for LGBTQ youth at risk, 2019), and co-curated ‘Talking Bones’ (Artspace TLV, 2017).

Hinden places photography and image-based media at the center of his work, also when incorporating other mediums; The starting point, research, and process reflect on the construction of images, and therefore of narratives, testimonies, and meanings. By experimenting with different forms and approaches for image-making, his practice also questions the authenticity of photography as a documentary-testimonial authority.

Assaf finds inspiration by examining different elements from the past, both collective and biographical ones. By revisiting these elements he is commenting on a contemporary unstable present, but also creating a visual dialogue between times and places. Hence, his works usually incorporate backstories and historical events on which he comments by resurfacing and reconstructing them.

Hinden employs a research-based approach that combines photography, collages, activation of archival materials, time-based technologies, and objects from public and private archives. By utilizing multiple techniques, he is motivated to challenge linear structures of time and narratives. The sources of archival materials that he chooses to work with are related to themes of cultural belonging and identity, with an additional focus on the evolution of art, origin, and ownership.

The biographical aspects of Assaf’s work stems from his mixed cultural background and family history; his mother immigrated from Morocco in the 1960s, while his father’s family of German Jews, fled the war in the late 1930s. These narratives of displacement and cultural remains are inherent in many of his works.

In addition to the reflection on photography and documentation, the works serve as a proposal or a method to explore a collective past through the individual story, while exposing it in a contemporary environment.