Dina Shenhav is preoccupied with the reciprocal relations between man and nature and with the complexity stemming from man’s status as both sovereign and subject in a variety of archaeological, ecological, political and social contexts. The themes she is concerned with are charged with an apocalyptic quality, and range from violent conflicts like the war in the Middle East to destruction and annihilation in an ecological, universal context.  

D.O.A. is Shenhav’s fifth foam installation. For this work, whose title is borrowed from the police jargon used to describe a murder scene (dead on arrival), Shenhav meticulously hand-carved a hunter’s cabin, complete with all of the tools of his trade. It embodies the controversy underlying the cultural phenomenon of hunting. The relaxed domestic appearance of this generic living environment has a deceptive quality, which camouflages the lodge’s routine use as a site of calamity – an arena of murder.  The shot animals are treated like the rest of the inanimate objects: some of them are displayed as trophies, while others are piled up one atop the other. The yellow sponge seems to continue absorbing what cannot be absorbed: blood, pain and guilt.