At an age when social, sexual, and educational explorations are at their highest point, the life of an eighteen-year-old Israeli girl is interrupted. She is plucked from her home surroundings and placed in a rigorous institution where her individuality is temporarily forced aside in the name of nationalism. During the next two years, immersed in a regimented and masculine environment, she will be transformed from a girl to a woman, within the framework of an army that is engaged in daily war and conflict. She is now a soldier serving her country, in a military camp amidst hundreds like her, yet beneath the uniform there is someone wishing to be noticed, listened to, and understood.
Israeli born photographer Rachel Papo, once conscripted to the same services as these young women, returned years later with the aid of a camera in an attempt to re-capture a world of ‘utter loneliness, mixed with apathy and pensiveness’.
Entitled Serial No. 3817131,(Papo’s own IDF serial) these photos share some insightful frames into the lives of the teenagers, who all share an experience of being caught in a regime where self-reflection and uncertainty constantly overshadows them.
View the rest of the photographs from Serial No. 3817131
I’ve already placed an order on the book, with 170 full colour photographs and text. for under £20
Rachel Papo| Desperately Perfect | Women in the Military | Women in the military: Flirting with Disaster
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