For three days, psychotherapist Rany Levy moved his clinic to 1:1 Center for Art and Politics, 4 Hasharon Street, Tel Aviv. For three hours every day, Levy sat in the therapist's chair next to the center’s window overlooking the street and 'treated' the people who chose to sit opposite him in the patient's chair. The public was invited to sign up for a treatment performance, and also to come, see and hear the series of 'treatments' from inside the center or from the street, through the shop window and a loudspeaker installed outside, transmitting the microphones attached to the therapist and the patients' bodies . This performative action was announced as unintended to psychologically help its participants.

Hasharon Street in Tel Aviv is considered the most active scene of street sex work in Israel. The street is populated by sex workers, some of whom suffer from mental illness, clients, drug addicts, homeless persons and passerby. The encounter between Levy, a psychotherapist and social worker, and the street's people, raises questions about the nature of psychotherapy and its ability to help people, and asks what happens when rules of therapy, such as discretion and continuity, are broken. What part of the treatment can survive, if at all, and what benefits might grow from such a form of performative therapy.

This is Rany Levy's fourth experiment in public therapy. It was preceded by experiments that took place in a clothing store, art gallery and in his private clinic.

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www.ranylevy.co.il