Sandbox

It is in the sandbox that our first creations come into being. Using only ten fingers, it is there that ideas find their realization through trial and error at play. Consisting of works by students and graduates of the Industrial Design Department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, this exhibition explores the creative process. The works are arranged in two concentric circles. Those in the inner circle were produced during a short seminar on the subject of souvenirs, while those in the outer circle were created as a result of prolonged and complex procedures. Flints, wicker, bark, gourds, palm branches, tricot threads, mud, and other materials were employed by the students whose works appear in the inner circle. Each year the department’s students take part in a seminar at the Dead Sea. Setting aside their usual preoccupation with research and development and their regular work using advanced production technologies, they “return to the sandbox” in order to experiment with traditional, handmade techniques and local materials. The resulting works are achieved through a combination of improvisation and rigorous planning, with a hint of intuitiveness. The works of the graduates were also created by means of dynamic methods characteristic of children at play in the sandbox. Yet, they demonstrate a material, formal, and technological evolution, sometimes going so far as to create a new language.