NADA House 2023

Dreamsong presents a site-specific installation of works by Tamar Ettun centered around Lilit, an aerial spirit demon with origins in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Judaic mythology. In the 2nd-7th centuries, artist-healers created spells, drawings, and talismanic objects to trap demons like Lilit, who was characterized as a dangerously sexual female entity, and appeared frequently on incantation bowls used in protective rituals. Enthralled by the images inscribed on these ancient objects, Ettun began studying their vocabulary and eventually, developed her own language that revives these practices through a contemporary feminist lens, subverting Lilit’s misogynistic archetype and revamping her image as an Empathic Demon.

Tamar Ettun (she/they; b. Jerusalem, Israel, 1982) has exhibited and performed at The Chinati Foundation, Pioneer Works, Pace University Gallery, The Watermill Center, Art Omi Sculpture Garden, PERFORMA, The Barrick Museum, Fridman Gallery, Sculpture Center, Madison Square Park, e-flux, Socrates Sculpture Park, and The Jewish Museum among others. Ettun received her MFA from Yale University in 2010 where she was awarded the Alice English Kimball Fellowship. She currently teaches at Columbia University School of Arts and Parsons School of Design.