BODY = THE NEW RELIGION
Between 2015 and 2019, I presented the work "BODY = The New Religion" - a long-term, methodological inquiry into the body and its relationship to the self.
There were no boundaries between myself and the work. My own body became the primary site for artistic experimentation - a living, breathing space where identity, ritual, and transformation were explored.
At the time, I fully identified with the idea of the Body as a Religion. It was through this radical embodiment that I began a deep process of individuation. Slowly, I came into alignment with my real self - not separate from the body, but fully integrated within it.
Since that turning point, I began signing my artworks with the name "Shlema" - a Hebrew word meaning whole. Within the framework of my practice, I had become an independent body: complete, unowned, and whole in itself
The Body Manifesto
Written on February 20th, 2015 The Body Manifesto came through as a moment of pure transmission. That morning, a force moved through me, guiding my hand to write. The text declares the Enlightened Body as a path of awakening — and marked the beginning of my deep commitment to the body as a source of truth, and to bringing its message into the world.
The Art of Repression
2015
Tel Aviv, Israel
BODY = The New Religion's Autonomous Zone.
An installation featuring a constant performance by Yasmin Hassidim as the Master of the Body.
A live concert performance featuring 15 individuals dressed in handmade Tomato-Leather costumes.
Together, they played and celebrated a piece I composed and directed: The Revelation of the Body Through the Grid.
Premiered at the opening of BODY = The New Religion, the work was a collective ritual - giving voice to the body's awakening within systems of control, where the “grid” symbolizes the structures that attempt to contain, regulate, and suppress embodied truth.
Seven Minutes in Heaven
2015
Tel Aviv, Israel
An immersive installation marking the central altar of BODY = The New Religion.
The space featured 60 meters of Tomato-Leather, relics and props from the performance of the Wanderers of the Body Orchestra, a 7-minute video projection of the drawing series A Grid Points to a Body, and an intimate 7-minute audio Confession I recorded just before the exhibition opened.
Taken place on the 13th of May, 2015 at the St. Anthony's Church in Jaffa, Israel.
A Grid Points to a Body
2015
Mixed media on a calendar.
A series of 50 drawings
30/42 cm each
Hall of Body
2015
Calafou, Catalunya, Spain. 2015
A site-specific installation, performance.
An old church, nestled within an abandoned textile factory, was transformed into The Hall of Body.
As part of the initiation ceremony, a performance was held — led by the Master of the Body and joined by members of the Calafou Collective, an anarchist community dedicated to radical, sustainable living. The work challenged the lingering presence of the church — a relic from the factory's colonial past — and proposed its transformation into a new space of embodied devotion: a sanctuary for the Body, where worship is rooted in presence, freedom, and wholeness.
BODY in New York
2015
New York, USA.
A 40-day performance in which 10,000 copies of The Body Manifesto were distributed across New York City.
I arrived as a kind of missionary - to declare the Body as The New Religion.
With an information stand, a costumed coat, and my own body as both vessel and voice, I moved through the city delivering the text hand to hand.
New York - a place of modernity’s excess, where new religions, ideologies, and identities are born and spread daily - became the perfect terrain for this act. In its crowded streets and shifting crowds, I planted seeds of a quiet revolution: reclaiming the body as sacred, sovereign, and whole.
OUT - OF - BODY
2016
Urban Art Rave, Tel Aviv, Israel
This interactive performance took place during a rave - a space filled with noise and overstimulation, where introspection is rare. Participants were blindfolded and given headphones playing a 528 Hz binaural beat. They were asked to focus on a point in their body that represented their “self.”
In this inward state, disconnected from the external chaos, they became living sculptures - fully immersed in their inner world, unaware they had become part of the artwork.
BNR's Love Machine
2016
WAS Biennale for private houses, Valley of Springs, Israel
As part of the WAS Biennale, I transformed the master bedroom of a private home into a sensory installation titled “The Love Machine.”
The space pulsed with the sound piece All You Breathe is Love, filling the room with a soft, immersive rhythm. The intimate setting of the bedroom, usually a private, tender space, became a site of collective reflection on love as an energetic force: mechanical, emotional, cosmic. The installation invited visitors to feel, breathe, and surrender to the presence of love not as romance, but as vibration.
BODY TV
2017
Andrea Meislin Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
A 7-day project in which live videos were broadcast daily on YouTube.
BODY TV was the final act of BODY = The New Religion. It became a space where I was more exposed than ever - broadcasting myself live, unedited, and fully present.
Throughout the week, I played with the core themes of The Body as Religion: from a video of me delivering a lecture in a bar on the Theory of the Body, to intimate monologues where I explored the inner life of my Released Body Parts - speaking from for them and through them.
In those moments, I allowed the unintegrated parts of my being to come forward. The final video, titled “Bye Bye BODY TV,” was a ritual of release - a letting go of the obsession with the body, and an invitation to move beyond it.
3rd Encounters From a BODY
2017
Art N’ Tribe, Tel Aviv, Israel
A Body Which Speaks Itself.
An interactive performance by the Master of the Body, in which I served as a medium for the body itself.
Visitors were invited into one-on-one sessions where their own bodies were channeled through me. In that intimate exchange, each participant became a Body that speaks itself - giving voice to the inner self in the act of experiencing art. It was a moment of deep listening - where the body, often silent, was finally heard.
Body Readings
2018
BODY TALK, Sputnik, Tel Aviv, Israel
An interactive performance by the Master of the Body, presented at the BODY TALK group exhibition.
Inspired by the ancient art of palm reading, this work offered a contemporary ritual of embodied intuition. Instead of reading the palm, I read the body - sensing and interpreting its energetic state, emotions, and silent messages.
Each Body Reading was handwritten on a disposable glove, transforming it into a personal inner map - a delicate, symbolic surface carrying the trace of the person’s essence. The gloves were then displayed throughout the exhibition, creating a collective archive of bodies being seen, felt, and understood beyond words.