The series of photographs “Me/Weddings/Toilettes” by Yaara Oren contains dozens of recurring images: portraits of the artist facing bathroom mirrors in various events. Oren, among other things, also makes her living as a wedding photographer. Each night she plays her role as one of the events invisible service providers, but also conducts her own little ceremony, a personal and private rite completed in the long hours spent biding time at events (before guests arrive, or when the event is winding down). She documents herself in a single snapshot image in a bathroom, facing it fully, serious in demeanor, with hands pointing the camera ahead. This is the only image she does not erase after filing away the memory card made for the event and erasing all other images. Meaning, hers is the only image left of the documentation of memories she is paid to provide.

Just as wedding photos tend to be repetitive, so does the series of photographs presented by Oren, more variations on a theme. A review of the thirty images in her series reveals the raw seams that fuse to create the theatre of celebration. The recurring composition makes it easier to keep track of the changing details: ceramic tiles, lighting fixtures, air fresheners, soap holders, the paper and hand driers – all of which we normally ignore, yet here they became central features. Our eyes are drawn to the embellishments of decorations of event venues, the exaggerated lighting, the strained efforts to recreate a natural, organic look that achieves only artificiality. Oren herself stands at the center of each shot, between air fresheners and hand driers, dressed in an understated way to disappear among the event guests, seeing and yet unseen – a witness holding the instrument of documentation, the one person who should never be caught in the camera’s sights.