Sonic Boom

Design: Dana Tannhauser
Story: Tzachi Kedar
Building: YMCA

In her series "Sonic Boom," Dana Tannhauser engages with the adolescent experiences of her father, Tzachi Kedar, at the YMCA. At a time that marked his farewell to childhood and entry into the world of men, the YMCA provided him with various masculinity role models.
In Tzachi's stories, the rambunctious playfulness of boyhood is accompanied by a desire and search for power. The games are "battles," a good swimmer is called "a real shark," and in the showers, the towels make a "sonic boom."
The series explores these models and masculine qualities, each beautiful and impressive in its own way, through elements of the YMCA structure and the objects and symbols that characterized the material and visual space of that period—all of them etched in the memory of a teenage boy.