Mere Things includes selections of work by Ilit Azoulay (Israeli, b. 1972; lives and works in Berlin) from 2010 to the present, featuring large scale digital photocollages of archival objects that explore how images and objects transmit knowledge, shape memory, and support or undermine historical narratives.

Initially trained in photography, Azoulay’s research-based practice explores the central role photography plays in archives and the idiosyncrasies of institutional systems created to preserve and produce knowledge.  As an outgrowth of this practice Azoulay created a new work, Unity Totem (2024), for the exhibition, mining the Jewish Museum’s collection for ritual objects, such as Torah finials, and amulets, mostly created by Jewish communities in various parts of the Arab world, including in the artist’s familial homeland of Morocco.