Hebrew settlement (התיישבות עברית co. designer Tal Shalev) – how would you make an Israeli, DIY chair? We chose Settlements as a raw material to revive into chairs. this is what we found.
the Israeli method of raising kids is a lot like scaffolding – empowering suitability and Capability, encouraging self experiences and exploration. our narratives are those of Traveling and settlement, destruction and revival. This is who we are. Israeli means Lean. We were wishing to make local, lo-cost, purposeful design.
We started this project thinking about the “products afterlife” as a point of view about the settlements in the west bank. we thought we will find remnants of civilisation after a place was evicted, which we totally found in few abandoned neighbourhoods in Elon Moreh, but we found the stories are much stronger than the items, and telling a solid story is more interesting than glewing stuff together into a collage chair.
The media depicts settlers as the problem. Cameras are always pointed at 15-year-old kids spraying graffiti on walls, going to destroy crops – these rascals are those few that ruin it for the most. The real “hard-core” of Yitshar, one of the most notorious settlements, is consisted by people living there for more than 30 years, raising children and planing on raising their grandchildren there.
These great, smart, idealistic, brave people are not our problem. in another scenario they were our social active neighbours, our leaders, our teachers, philosophers. the problem is the grotesque and inhuman policy of our government, and any enlightened government, towards individuals.
most people can not carry their day-to-day understanding that the government is the problem, because they live in a misconception that there is some sort of divine order and that in the core – there is something other than personal interests and beliefs.
Concrete was the main mass of our final design. In Yitshar we found most buildings are not made with building blocks but the terrace – the foundation is made of concrete. We wanted to find out what happens to a solid concrete block that you poor to the ground with the intention of pulling it out later on. what stories does it tell?
Our most important lesson from this very intense experience was that of peace. racism and any sort of collective hate can be terminated by a common denominator. once we try to reach and understand each other, we can see that we are humans, and our personal interests and beliefs may not be the same – but we all have them, and that doesn’t go without saying.
In hope for a better future,
shhigg
