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An art installation created by recent Shavei Rachel Girls’ High School graduate Dovrat Ostrov for her final matriculation project was chosen by the Ministry of Education to participate in a special November exhibition of alumni projects. Called “Since You’ve Been Gone,” the Ann Belsky Moranis Art Track student’s work pays tribute to the casualties of Operation Cast Lead, depicting the disheveled bedroom of a teenaged soldier who naturally assumed he would return home.

Top-notch works produced at Shavei Rachel regularly earn students praise and high marks. But more importantly, the projects provide them with an invaluable way in which to express the issues close to their hearts and the questions with which they struggle on a day-to-day basis. “I created this piece as the war was raging,” explains Ostrov. “I kept thinking about how when someone leaves, everything is frozen. His personality, his age, his potential – but also his possessions. I wrapped everything is wrapped in plaster – a substance which on the one hand turns hard, but on the other hand preserves what is underneath. And I painted everything white, a color which symbolizes emptiness and cold, but also something holy.” A clock ticks eerily amidst the bare silence because, Ostrov says, “Time continues, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop time.”

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