Luna Alcalay

En circuit

The title en circuit', the subtitle der alte Friedhof in Prag together with the linguistically rudimentary character of the shorthand messages: en circuit -the old cemetery in Prague- -for you Renée, my sister,- -do you remember?- -central European culture!- -Mitteleuropa!- -gone and forgotten- are contextual reflections on my part: how impressed and moved I was when I visited the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prag. Confronted with the sight of a vanished cultural world, I gazed at the old tombstones inscribed with Hebrew characters and jutting out at angles, half sunken into the earth. Suddenly my memory produced associated signals with the existence of a past culture: in the topography of the geographical 'entente' of the then Hapsburg monarchy with its fertile multiculturalism and many religions this vanished culture centrally anchored a specific cross-over' character in a bygone Europe. As an heir to this same culture, I wanted to lend it expression.