בלה חבצקין

I am Bella Hvatskin, a multidisciplinary artist. For the past twenty years I have lived and worked in the Upper Galilee. Since 2023, the central focus of my artistic practice has become the relationship between interior and exterior.

I chose to examine the relationship between the body’s internal systems and the external systems that exist beyond the skin. I am fascinated by how little is actually required to sustain the physical body when compared to the immense resources we invest in maintaining external systems—political, educational, and economic—created in the hope of living better lives, yet often turning us into their servants. How much of this is truly necessary for a meaningful life?

The work before you, Inner Portraits, presents life-size 3D-printed internal organs: a heart, a stomach, and a uterus. Each organ wears a garment designed in a different style.

The heart’s garment is inspired by Fabergé eggs and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which reshaped Russian society and abolished restrictions on Jewish residence in Moscow—allowing my family to live there, and where I was born.

The stomach’s garment draws on Perestroika (meaning “restructuring”), initiated in 1987, a process which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and my immigration to Israel.

The uterus wears a dress influenced by global movements advocating women’s rights over their bodies, and specifically over the uterus, itself.

The garments were designed and sewn to preserve each organ’s functionality, using sewing and embroidery techniques I learned in Russia from my mother and grandmother.