I was born in St. Petersburg and grew up in an immigrant home in Israel, alongside two educated parents who managed to always take care of the family's financial security, but never found professional fulfilment. I am a daily witness to the dissonance between the successful professionals my parents once were, and the life of survival and compromise brought forth by immigration.
The trauma of immigration naturally passed onto the next generation. The parent-child relationship was turned on its head, and the children often functioned as the responsible adults in the family. As someone who grew up this way, I have always had an impossible dream: to restore my parent’s dignity and see them strong and full of confidence.
However, my parents and their friends chose to embrace life and live it to the fullest. They write plays for birthdays, record songs for each other, dance, drink and soothe their pain with a passion for life and love, trying above all else to forget the instability and uncertainty of life.
The massive addiction to plastic surgery is in fact an attempt at controlling the uncontrollable, a human desire to look good, or simply be seen. In the unique clinic which our series creates, both the immigrant staff and their clients, are driven by the same human nature to survive.
Plastic surgery has become even more popular and accessible in recent years. Still, it is a medical procedure, surgery, positioning the patients seeking treatment as 'ill,' not good-looking or young enough; consequently, the notion of 'healing' through a plastic surgery is very limited. In many cases, dealing with eternal appearance is caused by psychological problems that are neglected and even exacerbated. In this series, I hope to present the other side of the beauty industry's enticing brochures, and focusing on the mental motivations for seeking an external solution.