Roni Ben Ari

• Name — Roni Ben Ari • Native Name — רוני בן ארי • Born — 1947 • Birthplace — Ramat Gan, Israel • Occupation — Photographer • Education — Beit Berl Academic College

Roni Ben-Ari was born in 1947 in Ramat Gan to Miriam and Abraham Halpern, a textile industrialist (Halpern Textile Industries). She lives in Moshav Netaim, with her husband, Daniel Ben Ari. They have three daughters. Ben Ari is a graduate of the Beit Berl Academic College, the School of Journalism in Tel Aviv, and the College for Geographic Photography.

She worked as a news director and reporter at the Israel Broadcasting Authority, Educational Television, and Channel Two. In recent years, she has been working as an independent photographer. Her work has been exhibited in solo and in group exhibitions in Israel and around the world, and it can be found in museums as well as in private collections. Among the subjects Ben Ari has investigated is the Israeli heroine. Mira Ben Ari—an exemplary figure who became the symbol of the Women's Corp of the Israel Defense Forces and for women in general—who was killed in the battle of Kibbutz Nitzanim during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The educational and heritage center at the Memorial to the Female Soldier (located in old Nitzanim), was established in tribute to her spirit and legacy. Ben Ari is a founder and partner in the Bateva School educational program, a growing mainstreaming program that prepares children and youth with complicated learning disabilities for independent integration into society. She is also a shareholder in the Elyakim Ben Ari Company, a civil engineering company that executes national projects in Israel.

Ben Ari uses her photography to document social issues such as aging, homelessness, prostitution, minorities, and ecology. She mainly photographs people, but also their surrounding environment. Before she photographs them, Ben Ari first becomes close to her subjects by living with them. For example, the photographs for her project, Journey in Search of "Țigancă", were taken only after she had been living among the Romani for about a year. She began the project after the death of her mother, who was born in Cluj-Napoka, Romania, a city that has historically had a large gypsy minority. In the project Till Their Voices Stop, Ben Ari lived in a nursing home. There, she photographed the fragile, elderly residents and recorded their voices, which she developed into a video installation that was exhibited in the gallery of the College for Geographic Photography.

Lag Be-Omer Ceremony, Mount Meiron, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv

City Project, Kibbutz Gallery, Tel Aviv

Love Conquers, Kibbutz Gallery, Tel Aviv

Solo exhibition, Until Their Voices Stopped, Gallery of the College for Geographic Photography, Tel Aviv

Permanent solo exhibition, Ethiopia Here, The Story of the Ethiopian Community, photos embedded on 12 concrete pillars, Park of the Communities, Petah Tikva Light, FusionArts Museum, New York, NY Border between Two Cities, Museum of Jaffa

Artists Create and book launch for Israeli Artists Book, Sand Horses Gallery, Paris Culture of the Kiosk/Gift of Memory, 53rd Biennale (Marx 7), Scalamata Gallery, Venice, Italy Memoir L'avenir, Head Museum, Paris, France Inside Israel, traveling exhibition in China commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel, Museum of the Three Kings, Chunching, China City of Refuge, Tel Aviv Biennale of Art, Hangar 2, Jaffa Port, Tel Aviv

Photography about Painting, Galerie Mémoire de L’avenir, Paris, France Two-person exhibition, Ma'agalot, Office in Tel Aviv (Alternative space for interdisciplinary art), Tel Aviv

Echo Phobia Art, Drap-Art Festival, Nakba Museum/CCCB Barcelona, Spain Wabi Sabi, "Love Art Make Art", Studio and Gallery, Tel Aviv Mapping, 54th Biennale, Gallery Living Art Gallery, Venice, Italy Black, Fusion Arts Museum, New York, NY

Solo exhibition, Loom-Father-Requiem, Galerie Vernon, Prague, Czech Republic Dance Signs, Tina B. Fest, Prague, Czech Republic Solo exhibition, Sea of Garbage, video work, screened on Mani House, Tel Aviv I Was There, Water Tower Art Fest, Sofia, Bulgaria Transformation, Hallway Gallery, Documenta 2012, Kassel, Germany

Solo exhibition, Montzi, Gypsies in Cluj-Napoca, Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca, Romania "At your place", Roof Gallery, Duisburg, Germany Rainbow in a Sea of Garbage, Gask Museum of Contemporary Art, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic My Eye/I, 92nd Street Y, New York, NY

Solo exhibition, Home Is Where the Hurt Is, Galerie Mémoire de L’avenir, Paris, France in between the lines, Art Gallery, Botanischer Garten, München-Nymphenburg, Germany Woven Consciousness, Contemporary Textile in Israel, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv

Adama, Second Biennale for Sculpture and Photography, Moshe Kastel Museum, Jerusalem Solo exhibition, Journey in Search of "Țigancă, Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan Adama, Gallery of the Ahmedabad and Baroda University and National Gallery of Mumbai, India I Live in the East and My Heart Is in the West, Fifty Years of Israel-German Relations, Pasinger Fabrik, Munich, Germany

Solo exhibition, Drawing in Stone, Artists House, Munich, Germany Solo exhibition, Central Museum of Textiles, The 15th International Triennial of Tapestry, Lodz, Poland Solo exhibition, Micro Macro, Pardes Festival, Kazmierz Dolny, Poland Tower of Babel, Schema Projects, Brooklyn, NY

Signing event Foley Gallery, NY Solo exhibition, Gallery Ryugaheon, Seoul, Korea UNESCO –Art & Society, Solo exhibition at the World Humanities Conference. Bruges, Belgium Bosom Bodies, SIA Gallery, NYC 16th DongGang International Photo Festival, Korea

Solo exhibition, The International Photography Festival of Photo Is:Rael PhotoBook Show, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece Memory of the Future gallery, "can I call you madam?", Paris, France Cuckoo's Nest gallery, "Beyond the mind", Jaffa, Israel