Jerusalem artists go cooperative and contemporary at the ‘Factory’
From exhibits to communal living, Empty House group turns their bohemian instincts into something more permanent at ‘HaMiffal’
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
It can take artists, often young and idealistic, to do something as dramatic as appropriating an historical, abandoned building and turning it into a public art space.
That’s what the members of Empty House, an artists’ cooperative, have done at HaMiffal, or The Factory, their self-named project, housed in an early 20th-century building, left standing, dilapidated and abandoned, behind the multi-million dollar, renovated Waldorf Astoria hotel in Jerusalem.
With funding from Eden, the Jerusalem Center Development Authority, HaMiffal was originally designated to be open only over the summer. The group is now extending their stay through June 2017, with events held throughout each week, including craft workshops and performance art, exhibitions to see and coffee and beer to quaff — all surrounded by the charmingly mismatched tables and chairs furnishing the cafeteria.
Like any project created by this group — whose name is a clever nudge at society and its norms (Empty House is Bayit Reik in Hebrew, the term used when parents are away and kids throw parties for their friends; HaMiffal means ‘The Factory,’ pointing at the group’s efforts to create a kind of socialized, industrial line in the creative arts) — the work is often temporary, as they squat in a space, turn it into something creative and imaginative and then leave it, as they’ve done many times before.
It’s also always cooperative, as well as open to new members, whether fellow artists or admirers.
“We’re about art and community,” said Itamar Hammerman, a member of the group. “We’re always asking how to create and how to bring it out to everyone else.”
This group of mostly Bezalel-trained artists started their efforts in 2011, after deciding to remain in Jerusalem to mine its artistic depths. Their first takeover was the abandoned President Hotel in Rechavia, memorable for being the first Jerusalem hotel with an outdoor pool. The artists weren’t allowed to be there, but after treading carefully — like making sure to end all parties and events by 11 p.m. — they weren’t kicked out by the police, or by complaining neighbors.
“You don’t want to cause problems,” said Tal Benhamo, another Empty House resident artist. “You know when you’re crossing the line.”
From the President Hotel, they moved to an abandoned building on Emek Refaim Street, next to the under-construction Isrotel, and from there to a “kibbutz” in a set of abandoned buildings in the Kiryat Moriah educational complex, where the group of 10, sometimes 20 people, lived and worked, setting up a pirate radio station and organizing weekly parties. In 2014, they built and lived in wagons that set up shop around the city for several months.
The municipality never gave them permits for their projects, but they didn’t kick them out, either. Empty House’s first experiment with something more official was when they joined forces at the First Station and set up two semi-permanent exhibitions in an old railway car parked at the northern end of the refurbished train station that has become a cultural and social center for the city.
The group took a break of about a year before being offered the historic house by Eden, which pitched in NIS 600,000 (about $158,000) to install basic electricity and bathrooms. The artists were the ones to jazz up the restrooms with temporary exhibits and latticework in the basic gray pipes used for the toilets.
“We’ve had to learn to speak a different language,” said artist Shavit Yaron of the agreement with Eden. “We signed contracts and started working.”
The group cleaned out detritus from decades of squatters, with different artists taking charge of various areas of the two-story house. The arched ceiling of the main room is painted a sky blue with floating figures while the defunct elevator is drawn to echo the former, grand stone entrance of the house, just feet away from a sculptured water fountain, rigged in the center of the main foyer.
It was an impromptu visit from 96-year-old Claire Lorenzo that cleared up the provenance of the building, which was owned by her Arab Christian family who left in 1948, in order to escape to Lebanon. Her adult son has continued to visit HaMiffal, much to the artists’ pleasure.
The project, said Neta Meisels, another artist who acts as a spokesperson, is a kind of Zionist factory, playing on idealistic values of the past and putting a new spin on them in their artistic organization.
“This is something you do because you want to,” he said. “The name, The Factory, points to the fact that we weren’t finished with the place when it opened. There’s history here, walls, architecture, people who come, and all this raw material for us to use.”
Between 7,000 and 10,000 people came to HaMiffal over the summer, attending some 60 events that included local musicians, dancers, artists and other performers. They forged a relationship with their closest neighbors, often students or old-timers living in the distinctive buildings and homes nearby, but less so with the guests of the Waldorf or the other nearby residences geared for foreign buyers.
“We haven’t figured out how to have a relationship with them, but we have this relationship with the city now,” said Meisels. “We need a management system.”
The Empty House is not a complete free-for-all at this cultural space. There’s a functional, tidy kitchen where the artists make a pot of soup for lunch or readily prepare coffee for one another. Some of them camped out upstairs during the summer months, where the rooms are organized according to use, whether as a storeroom, sewing space or sound room.
There’s also a factory room, full of carefully delineated materials — most of them found and recycled by Benhamo, who runs the space, and where participating artists are paid a nominal salary from the funds given to them by Eden.
“Is this the direction of Empty House?” asked Meisels, who is also working on his PhD in philosophy and urban thought. “We don’t really know. It’s an open plan that works, and working with a proper organization like Eden is a danger for us, but also an opportunity. We’re like a blood infusion to the city, offering a new space for public art.”
