Gal Nissim: Invasive Thoughts (Mothers and Monsters)

Gallery, in collaboration with The Neighborhood: An Urban Center for Jewish Life, is pleased to announce Invasive Thoughts (Mothers and Monsters), a solo exhibition by artist Gal Nissim that unfolds across video, sculpture, and window installation. The exhibition premieres Chapter 1 of Nissim’s new three-channel video Invasive Thoughts, which sits at the center of the gallery and features original music by cellist and producer Topu Lyo. Nissim's ongoing, multiyear project examines invasive species control methods that target female bodies, addressing how care justifies acts of violence. Nissim made this work while pregnant, nursing, and weaning. Invasive Thoughts began during Nissim’s 2023 and 2025 AIRIE residency in the Everglades. Nissim adopts the perspective of motherhood to explore the moral, scientific, and spiritual complexities of the Burmese python in the Florida Everglades. Weaving interviews with biologists, reptile hobbyists, and animal welfare scientists with ancient narratives and contemporary field research, Chapter 1 of Invasive Thoughts raises urgent questions about which lives we protect, which we eliminate, and whose knowledge we value. This exhibition also debuts Destruction and Creation, a site specific window installation that extends the exhibition's themes of death, reproduction, care, and violence into the gallery exterior.

The exhibition returns to the primordial serpent in the Garden of Eden. In the book of Genesis, the serpent is cursed for tempting Eve, whose punishment is to give birth in pain. Nissim asks where the instinct to kill the serpent comes from, and whether these ancient, yet persistent Jewish biblical texts are still at work in a Florida swamp. For viewers who have never read Genesis, the python is a way in. For viewers who grew up with these stories, the Everglades reframes texts they thought they already knew. Gal Nissim is an artist and researcher who works with technology, organisms, and humor to challenge our preconceptions about nature. Her work has been supported and shown at prominent institutions including MoMA, the New Museum, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Science Gallery, and Pioneer Works.

Nissim was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Culture Young Artist Award and has received grants from organizations such as LMCC, the Culture & Animals Foundation, and the Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts. She has participated in residencies and fellowships with Artport, Leonardo@Djerassi, NEW INC, Artists in Residence in Everglades, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Weizmann Institute of Science as an outstanding young researcher. Nissim holds a Master’s degree from NYU’s ITP. She earned her BSc, summa cum laude, in biology and cognitive science from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, while also studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art, and currently teaches in the NYU Animal Studies Program. https://www.galnissim.com/ Curatorial support by Vardit Gross. This exhibition was made in partnership with The Neighborhood: An Urban Center for Jewish Life, with additional support by the NYU Animal Studies Program. The development of artwork for the exhibition is supported by Artis. View the Press Release here. A.I.R. Galleryʼs Downtown Manhattan Homecoming A.I.R. Gallery is at a transformational moment in its 54-year history.

After nearly two decades in Brooklyn, we are returning to our Manhattan roots and establishing a new, long-term home at the Federal Archive Building in the West Village. Our new 2,400 square foot facility will double the space devoted to our feminist programming and secure the future of one of New York City’s oldest alternative art spaces.