This year’s Jerusalem Design Week looks to be a port in a storm
The 13th edition of the annual event brings creative works on its ‘ark’ theme to locations around the city
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Jerusalem’s Design Week is known for its avant garde, creative commentary on life in Israel, and the 13th edition of the annual event is no different — albeit overlaid with sadness and grief from the ongoing war, hostage situation and fissures in Israeli society.
This year’s event is titled The Ark, taking place September 19-26. It is centered in Jerusalem’s Hansen House with some events hosted at galleries and museums around the city, including the National Library, Israel Museum, the Museum of Islamic Art, Hamiffal, the Yellow Submarine, the Train Theater, Studio of Her Own, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and other locations.
There are various kinds of arks created for the event, including “The Raft,” made by Yuval Zin, Dolev Harel and Neta Rechesin, which stands in the central exhibit in Hansen House.
It was built within the confines of the gallery and represents both the ark made by Noah and Theodore Gericault’s painting, “The Raft of the Medusa,” about a raft constructed by the workers on a French naval frigate to survive a shipwreck.
This ark and other pieces being exhibited symbolize the theme of this year’s Design Week, which draws on the biblical story of a ship created to weather a storm, leaving it to viewers to decide what storms may need to be survived.
The event is a kind of port in the current storm, said curators Dana Benshalom and Sonja Olitsky, as Hansen House and other galleries filled their spaces with creations, exhibits and shows to save, redeem, and inspire hope.
“Design Week offers another perspective on everything that’s happening,” said Olitsky during the opening event. “We have to create, we have to do, that’s the agency of design and creation, even during a crisis.”
The exhibits include one by Haifa-based street art collective Broken Fingaz that explores the space between hope and desperation, with an opportunity for visitors to send letters with messages of peace to relatives or strangers.
As part of the annual Matchmaker Program, designer Shahar Kedem joined forces with the Israel Meteorological Service and local weather forecaster Yerushamayim to create an alternative meteorological weather farm.
Another meaningful Matchmaker project was created by Yuval Buchshtav, brother of hostage Yagev Buchshtav, who was taken captive on October 7 from Kibbutz Nirim and killed in captivity.
Yagev was a sound engineer who specialized in creating experimental instruments, and his younger brother returned to his workshop to complete an unfinished instrument he left behind.
Other artwork includes a wall full of Rakefet Kenaan’s Instagram project @earring.today, “Flags Earrings,” which at first revolved around the Israeli flag, which became a symbol of opposition at the 2023 anti-judicial overhaul protests.
Kenaan took the image of the Israeli flag and broadened her perspective, creating a daily flag earring, each one embroidered with images or messages that reflect her feelings and emotions in the past year.
In “The Israeli Thorn Guide,” Nitzan Mileguir and Noa Itzchaki collected thistles, familiar from the Israeli summer landscape, metallicizing the prickly flowers into something permanent.
Visitors can sign up for guided tours at exhibits and galleries, or travel to the various exhibits on the Design Week red bus, which will ferry passengers along a daily route that begins at different locations around the city and ends at the central exhibit in Hansen House.
More information is available on the Design Week website.
