I work in video, photography, and installation to critically investigate the mechanisms and motivations affecting our socialization and the way we relate to our surroundings. My works use various media to deconstruct different hegemonic structures such as nationalism, militarism, and patriarchy. I hold dual citizenship and live and work between Israel and the US, a productive duality that enables me to hold a critical but nuanced insider-outsider perspective on both societies. My background in theater and film allows me to apply theatrical procedures, using props, texts, characters, and choreography to create uncanny interventions and re-staging.
Willenz holds a MFA from the University of California, Berkeley (2019), and a BA from the Marc Rich Honors Program in the Humanities and the Arts, Tel Aviv University (2015, Dean’s honors). She has exhibited nationally and internationally in venues including the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives; The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Berkeley; Heaven Gallery, Chicago; Root Division, SF; Dream Farm Commons, Oakland; Nuzha Gallery, Jaffa; The Gvul Gallery, Hanita and The Joint Jewish-Arab Gallery, Kibbutz Cabri. She is currently working on a solo exhibition that will open at the Bar David Museum of Art, Kibbutz Bar’am in Fall 2023.
Willenz was artist-in-residence at The Lincoln Center Theater, NYC; Ox-Bow School of Art, Michigan; Atelier Shemi, Kibbutz Cabri and in March 2023 will be in residency at the Vermont Studio Center. She was a fellow at the Art and Research Center at UC Berkeley; and received grants from Asylum Arts; The Center for Arts and Religion at GTU, Berkeley; Jewish Arts Collaborative, Boston and Tel Aviv’s Art Department. She won the Eisner Prize for Photography and the WORD prize from the American Jewish University, LA. In 2022 Willenz was a Creative Capitol Award finalist. Her work was featured in Image Journal and JArts Magazine.