Between Words and Art, Between Old and New

A multidisciplinary, multi-part public art event and exhibition, presented and taking place simultaneously throughout the three floors of the Old Library, the Peace Gallery, and the open public spaces connecting them on the Givat Haviva campus.

The exhibition presents original artworks exploring the relationship between words, text, and language – Hebrew, Arabic, and English – and visual expression, with a spatial approach to interior and exterior architecture and through the use of materials from the Yad Yaari Archive.

The works in the project were created using a variety of artistic technologies, techniques, and media, including painting, sculpture and installation, photography, video art, architecture, sound, and performance.

The works engage with the public space and re-examine, sometimes boldly, the evolving space of art – between indoors and outdoors, public and private, words and visuality, old and new.

Participants

Avital Geva, Alexandra Zaslav, Janat Amara, Hadas Gartman, Yair Garbuz, Lilach Tsafroni, Maya Ben-Natan, Moshe Roas, Noa Rosen, Neta Weiner, Suha Farouja, Adi Shildan, Anati Turk, Keren Fargo, Ronit Bar-Ilan, Shaul Knaz, Sharon Glazberg.

Few places inspire a sense of awe the moment one enters them. This library, this building, belongs to that rare family of places.

To a first-time visitor from outside, it seems as though a fascinating process of complete synthesis has taken place here between ink and concrete. The words have been absorbed into the building. They speak from within it. Here, they can be smelled; they can almost be touched.

They are both cause and consequence of the spiral staircase that makes everyone who climbs it feel as though they are spinning.

And yet, the artistic process revealed before the eye, much like the beautiful card-catalogue cabinets, deserves an explanation:

What is happening here between these walls filled with dust and cobwebs? What is happening between art and words, between the new artists, full of creativity and the courage to change and renew, and the old building?

Between Old and New

Because Givat Haviva is still saturated with memories and has few permanent residents. People pass through, arrive, laugh, get to know one another, fall in love – and leave. They leave behind a delicate trail of memories that accompanies them for many years to come.

Because Bedouins were here, followed by Australians and Englishmen; there was a parade ground upon which layers of brown earth accumulated, and buildings that were renovated and covered with plaster and rough-textured coating, painful to the touch. Today there are Jews and Arabs here, and soon there will be people from around the world.

Between Words and Art

Because the voice of Haviva Reik is now difficult to hear; because the Old Library building is empty of books and filled with pigeon droppings; because at the Moreshet Center there is a story of female courage waiting to be told.

Because the old building designed by Mestetchkin and the Yad Yaari Archive bring tears to the eyes, no matter who you are or where you come from.

Because Givat Haviva is a place of education and training, conceived through words spoken between people who truly listened to one another. A place where, with passion and conviction, thousands of young women and men were trained to become the next generation of kibbutz members and Hashomer Hatzair activists.

It is a place that celebrated, and still celebrates, the process itself – that wonderful in-between period of being “almost there.”

Because the process that began here has not ended or been completed. It is real. Alive and present. The prevailing sound on the hill is still that of young people – laughing, swearing, full of hormones. They are on their way, unfinished, still uncertain of themselves. They assert their presence without always understanding the consequences, creating beauty and destroying it at the same time.

The first reading in the library is freedom.
The readings that follow are art.

About the Participating Artists and Their Works

Avital Geva

The work BROKEN HALLELUYA forms a meeting point of sounds and sights, allowing audiences of all ages to connect with a simple message – a prayer wishing for a better world.

A system of pipes used to carry water stretches across an area of approximately 400 square meters. It contains numerous openings from which emerge the sounds of the famous song performed by Leonard Cohen during the Yom Kippur War.

Artist Avital Geva has created an alternative system for transmitting messages in an enjoyable and immediate way, echoing the hope for a world free of violence and corruption – a better world.

Photography: Tal Bedrak

Alexandra Zaslav

A dancer with the Kamea Dance Company who researches dance and movement as forms of non-verbal communication, as well as conflict resolution and shared life between Jewish and Arab society.

In her work Sister Languages, Alexandra created a space for movement along the path between the Old Library and the Peace Gallery. Together with the audience she encounters there, she explores movement-based interpretations of expressions in the two languages, based on the fundamental understanding that the way an expression is interpreted in one language is not always identical to its interpretation in another.

Janat Amara

A video artist and art teacher, graduate of the Art Department at Oranim College. A social activist whose work has been exhibited in Israel and internationally.

In the project, she presents a delicate yet fearless manifesto, read from a kitchen towel by a woman who refuses to be controlled, confronting everyday reality, culture, and rigid tradition and looking them courageously in the eye.

Hadas Gartman and Lilach Tsafroni

Hadas Gartman and Lilach Tsafroni are residents of Hadera who have worked within their community over the past decade to promote high-quality public art in the city and surrounding region.

They participate in dozens of events, bringing artistic quality and an honest, direct, and courageous voice to cultural discourse.

In the project they present Sky in the Basement, in which they trace the lives and actions of women who performed extraordinary deeds during the Holocaust. Through stories, fabrics, performance, and hospitality, and by weaving together past and future, the artists and their fellow performers create a work in which history and the present are intertwined.

Yair Garbuz

Born September 29, 1945. Israeli painter, writer, and publicist.

Since the 1970s, his work has combined influences from American Pop Art with local imagery. His paintings, associated with the Israeli Want of Matter style, are constructed as collages combining self-reflexive artistic elements with social criticism.

In 2004 he received the EMET Prize. For many years he served as Dean of the Hamidrasha School of Art and held numerous other positions in the Israeli art world.

In the project, Garbuz presents an exhibition of his recent paintings, created between 2017 and 2018, which faithfully represent his fluid, energetic style, rich in text and humor.

Maya Ben-Natan

A multidisciplinary artist and graduate of the Art Department at the University of Haifa, headed by Assi Meshullam.

She works in several media and designs spaces using a variety of materials. In the project, she presents a work in memory of the late artist Uri Katzenstein, who died prematurely and had been a teacher in the Art Department.

Maya writes:

Moshe Roas

A print artist, graduate of the Textile Design Department at Shenkar, specializing in screen printing on textiles.

He develops content and researches screen printing on a variety of materials. He received the Ministry of Culture Design Award in 2014 and studied in the MFA program at Hamidrasha – Beit Berl.

For the project, he created an open workshop inviting audience participation, inspired by historical concepts and ideas of reproduction while allowing participants to introduce the colorfulness characteristic of contemporary printing.

Neta Weiner

Musician, poet, and actor; lead singer and accordionist of the band System Ali; member of the T.M.R. Theatre group; and spoken-word artist.

He creates in four different languages. Neta was invited to the project to create a participatory workshop entitled The Language of Rap, in which audience members write in different languages and, using the tools of rap, express what is on their minds and in their hearts. The participating languages are Hebrew, Arabic, English, and Russian.

Suha Farouja

A multidisciplinary artist, exhibition curator, and art teacher. A graduate of Hamidrasha School of Art at Beit Berl. She lives and works in Israel and is the mother of five children.

In her work, including this project, Suha draws attention to the ways local and communal culture shape her life. She hangs a bridal veil and writes words upon it in gold marker, pointing to the way the bride suddenly transforms from a woman into an object that must not be touched or approached.

Adi Shildan

Adi Shildan is a choreographer, performer, dancer, dance teacher, Ilan Lev Method practitioner, travel writer, and amateur photographer.

In the project, Adi presents a solo work that unfolds in the transitions between the intimate space of the dressing room and the public space of the stage. Everything remains exposed and visible to the viewer – what is spoken and what is communicated without words.

The key word here is gender. The artist engages with Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, according to which our gender identity is constructed within a social context and gender itself is a performance – a kind of mask we wear.

Created and performed by: Adi Shildan | Artistic guidance: Sahar Azimi | Dramaturgy: Liron Dinovitz | Costumes: Hila Shapira | Mask: Sharona Efrat | Music: Ofer Tisser | Lighting design: Dani Fishof, Rotem Elroy

Anati Turk

A creative performer, shamanic healer, and practitioner of healing through sound and frequencies. She connects the worlds of spirituality, creativity, performance, and healing, using song and voice as channels for healing and for resonating the unique sound and color of the soul.

In the project, she performs a participatory singing piece with the audience, engaging in dialogue and connecting with the spirit of Haviva Reik, after whom Givat Haviva is named.

Keren Fargo Radomsky

Born in 1975, she lives and works in Israel. A painter and graduate of the Holon Institute of Technology.

She regularly combines text and painting in her work. She paints on pages from old books and creates collages that bring together human nature and the written word in intriguing and innovative combinations.

In the exhibition, she presents three large-scale works on canvas.

Ronit Bar-Ilan

A concept developer, writer, consultant, facilitator, and content creator. She focuses, accompanies, and develops creative projects.

Her work in the project was entitled Expansion. Old books were “stripped” of their paper dust jackets, revealing the old cloth bindings underneath. Nostalgic colors, prints, and symbols were brought back into the light like forgotten treasures.

The books were placed on metal wedges embedded in the wall of the Old Library at Givat Haviva, forming roof-like triangles that echo the new residential expansions in kibbutzim.

Together they formed a kind of neighborhood whose historical background – or, if you prefer, its ground – is available to anyone willing to move beyond its aesthetic appearance and delve into the written content.

Shaul Knaz

Shaul Knaz was born in 1939 in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. He studied art at the Avni Institute, where painter Moshe Propes was among his teachers.

During the 1970s, he worked in graphic design as well as illustration and caricature for the newspapers Haaretz, Davar HaShavua, Hotam, and HaDaf HaYarok.

His works are characterized by the use of an amorphous drawing line and the recurring use of graphic elements.

He presents a series of six works created before and after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, addressing questions of religion and state, nationality, security, and citizenship.

Sharon Glazberg

An internationally active multidisciplinary performance artist who has exhibited in dozens of exhibitions in Israel and around the world.

In the project, she presents the performance/installation End of a Dream, inviting people to stop along their route and rest. Sleep. Daydream. Listen to a lullaby from another place, from cultures distant or near.

The installation consists of twenty beds and mattresses, among which volunteers move, matching a lullaby to members of the audience who agree to lie down and rest.

Exhibition Events

Opening Event – May 5, 2018

Closing Event of “Between Words and Art” – June 16, 2018

A Glimpse into the Exhibition

Installation Views

Photos from the Opening

Exhibition Page in Hebrew | Exhibition Page in Arabic