In the first room of the exhibition “Obedience” by Saskia Boddeke in the Jewish Museum, Berlin, an immense wall is covered with the words “I am Isaac” and “I am Ishmael” in a dozen languages, as if written by children. To achieve the necessary naivety in the writing, I resorted to the old tricks: eyes closed, left hand, back to front, and so on. It is very satisfying to pretend to be a Chinese child barely in command of the characters; but my crude, childish scribbling still looked a bit like Zen calligraphy. Untutored Arabic and Hebrew script came more naturally!

Photos by Igor Mandic, copyright Saskia Boddeke.