Untitled (Topaz) / 2022

The series of photographs of female soldiers by Anna Yam are the result of meetings she held with lone soldiers living in the Herzliya B neighborhood.

Lone soldiers are people who enlist to military service and are away from the families during that service, whether because they immigrated alone to Israel, are orphans, or are disassociated from their families. These lone individuals are brought together into small communities, lodged in housing near the Herzliya Artists’ Residence. They invited Yam to their homes on the sandstone hills and she photographed them in and around the neighborhood, in the slivers of municipal groves that still exist.

The soldier is an arbitrary signifier of the military collective. They are tools, representatives of a greater mechanism. The uniform covering the living form marks it as belonging to a large structure, establishing it within a strict hierarchical system. In return, the body receives the benefits of belonging: it becomes empowered.

The female soldiers Yam presents get into uniform for the photographic pose. Playing their own role as soldiers for the camera while Yam captures their image among the “almost groves”, tiny random green enclaves, a proportional segment testifying to the greater urban landscape beyond the frame.

The subjects’ awareness of the camera is obviously apparent. While they are young enough to have been born into a world of constant digital self-documentation and have long been acquainted with the best angles for a pose, Yam undermines the photographic conventions they are accustomed to, using a range of tricks—one of them a 35mm high resolution film that limits the number of shots. She also challenges the traditional relationship between uniform and wearer by shooting during the weekend, the only time they are not required to meet dress code. In this way, Yam momentarily neutralizes their hyper-awareness of the camera, and subverts the standard “correct” composition by copiously using its components.

This is the case in the untitled black-and-white photograph of a girl named Topaz standing against a wall. Her arms hang down as if she couldn’t decide what to do with them during the pose, her gaze directly faces the lens. In response to that direct, unrepentant gaze, Yam uses a direct flash to flatten the image, casting dark shadows of dull black contours behind her.  These seem to continue the hairline created by her crewcut: short, boyish hair that merges well with the androgynous façade created by the uniform.