MAYA GELLER

Hineni

The world offers itself to your imagination,                
calls to you like the wild geese –    
harsh and exciting ­over and over
announcing your place in the family of things
(Wild geese, Mary Oliver)

The sun set down and cleared the space for the full moon shining above as I sat down on the cold floor of a caravan in the fields of Sgula, south Israel, having a traditional Thai dinner with 8 Thai men. We were eating rice, eggs, fish and vegetables with our hands, communicating with no words, by mime and our imagination. It was after a long day of shooting – when I joined Art, a foreign Thai agriculture worker who lived in Israel for the past 5 years, away from his wife and son. He was about to return to his home country the next morning – his nervousness and excitement were there as well, sitting on the dinner floor with us. Rain started falling and the smells of a hard work day, Thai food and the wet fields outside were mixed together into a one of a kind fragrance that I smelled for the first time. I took a deep breath and pressed the Rec button of my camera.

I meet people, I hear stories, I collect moments.