Hadar, First I have to ask why did you choose Ruth Dayan as the subject matter of your current exhibition?
I met Ruth Dayan and learned a lot from her. In my opinion she is the mother of Israeli crafts and one of the main pillars of Israeli art and design, so I thought that creating an exhibition that would be an attribute to a woman who did so much for all of us culturally would mean a lot.
The first thing I saw when I entered the exhibition was the lack of fashion representations. There are few fashion items but for the most parts you decided to focus on art and craft. Why is that?
Ruth may be famous as a fashionista, but in my mind, that is a reduction of her true work. She reiterated the truth that the beauty and aesthetics in the art of the nations of Israel can be used by artists in Israel and neighboring countries for livelihood and sustenance – thus creating a bridge for collaboration.
Ruth’s legacy to us is that traditional crafts are the basis for all developments in art, creation, and design – even as we move in step with new technologies.
In the exhibition, I’ve chosen to illuminate the art and craft aspect of Ruth’s work, being the broadest and most meaningful aspect of her world.
Can you share with us how exactly she connected between the immigrants she met to the crafts?
In the first years of the State of Israel, Ruth Dayan, the farmer from Nahalal, taught at the olim (immigrants) settlements along the Jerusalem corridor.
Her keen eyes picked up on the olim’s craft skills, their colorful handicrafts, and the knowledge they’d brought over from their countries of origin.
She decided to turn this knowledge and occupation into a livelihood and a cultural repository.
Ruth Dayan was a pioneer of conserving traditional handicrafts, ingeniously giving them local character and becoming a trailblazer of integrating handicrafts with Israeli art and design.
Her work was underpinned by concern for people’s livelihoods, and the understanding that, on one hand, one must preserve the knowledge, spirit, culture, art, and craft of those who’ve arrived from all corners of the earth; and on the other, that the old and traditional must be wedded to local materials to create a new Israeli design reflecting who we are here and now.
To realize her vision, Ruth traveled the length and breadth of Israel. In the towns, villages, moshavim, immigrant camps, and absorption centers, she met people of many ethnicities, religions, and nations.
She located expert artisans in their fields, supplied them with local materials, and enabled them to do what they did best, while including leading Israel designers and artists. Together they created new design and a new fashion.
Ruth pushed to include crafts, textiles, and embroideries into designs that echoed the new colorful direction of design in our region, consequently giving rise to a different fashion.
You’ve been working on this exhibition for quite some time, can you share some of the challenges you faced along the way?
The work of a curator has many aspects. My main challenge was to work with such a vast group of artists and to manage to combine them into one exhibition in which each work gets the respects it deserves. During the process you discover that few works won’t match the overall story or that the artist won’t be able to make it on time, so you do have sacrifices to do and decisions to make. For me the connection between the art and craft pieces is very important and one challenge was to convey it successful in the exhibition.
