Orly Zailer (born in Israel, 1982) is conceptual photo artist, who focuses in her work on the performative role of the photographer, memory and archive.
Between 2004 and 2008 she studied photography and education at The NB (WIZO) Haifa School of Design (B.Ed.Des). During that time her main focus in photography was on creating environmental portraitures. She used to photograph residents in old neighbourhoods in their homes with black and white film and a 4x5 camera.
In 2010 she moved to London. Between 2011 and 2012 she studied at Goldsmiths College, University of London for a Master of Arts degree. She lived in London until 2014 and during that period she has created several photography and video projects about council estates in eastern London portraying the changes affected by the 2012 London Olympics on the lives of the residents (video and stills). Moreover she also started her long-term project in which she restaged old photographs from various family albums with the descendants of the people photographed in the old photographs (The Time Elapsed Between Two Frames). In the course of that time she also had numerous group exhibitions and participated in several photography festivals in London.
Between 2015 and 2017 she studied Phototherapy at Musrara School of Art in Jerusalem. Then she started working on video journals - excerpts of contemporary videos she made, mixed with old video footage from her childhood.
In 2018 she was invited by the FO.KU.S gallery in Innsbruck Austria to the INN SITU residency to realize a second part to her project The Time Elapsed Between Two Frames with the local community. She also received The Mifal Hapais Council for the Cultures and Arts Grant for residencies support in 2019. The outcome of that residency, including the first part of the project, was exhibited in a solo exhibition AHNEN. Neue Porträts in the gallery in 2019. Her works are represented in the FO.KU.S Gallery collection.
In the beginning of 2020 she was selected for the artist exchange residency at Düsseldorf by the Cary & Dan Bronner Foundation, Kunststiftung NRW, Goethe-Institut and Tel Aviv artists studios artist exchange residency.
A variety of international media outlets have featured her work, including Der Spiegel, Die Welt, Arte , 3sat, ORF, Der Standard, Franzmagazine, Monopol and SCHNAPPSCHUSS Das Foto Koch Magazin.