{"id":3166,"date":"2019-06-20T10:28:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T10:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/giuliazappa.net\/where-is-the-east-at-jerusalem-design-week-it-is-a-changeable-space-facing-the-future\/"},"modified":"2019-06-20T10:28:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T10:28:37","slug":"where-is-the-east-at-jerusalem-design-week-it-is-a-changeable-space-facing-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giuliazappa.net\/en\/where-is-the-east-at-jerusalem-design-week-it-is-a-changeable-space-facing-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is the East? At Jerusalem Design Week it is a changeable space facing the future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Not looking towards the East, but a reflection on the idea of the East. An invitation to gaze upon this emblematic cardinal point like a rhizome laden with meaning opened the doors to the ninth edition of the Jerusalem Design Week (13-20 June 2019), the most important Israeli event related to design as well as a testing ground for many young local designers. Inaugurated in 2011, and since 2016 open also to international designers, the event hosted at Hansen House \u2013 an ancient leper colony today repurposed as a fab lab \u2013 is not so much a showcase for new products but a platform aimed at experimenting through the development of exhibitions, installations and transversal projects for a total of around 200 works on display, the majority of which were commissioned and previously unseen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relevant and courageous in a city where the East and the West embody a confine both symbolic and real and where their dialectic has remained for decades an unresolved matter regarding international political agendas, the theme of the \u201cEast\u201d is able to pinpoint and describe a tension that is indeed largely local but which expresses its relevance even globally. \u201cWhere is the East? We keep reading alarming news about it: Russia is rebuilding its iron curtain, Syrian refugees, Chinese Hollywood that is growing bigger than the American one. For Westeners, this feeling of threat or a mysterious future persists. By choosing the East as the theme for our design week, we\u2019ve tried to avoid all folkloric notions. During our analysis, we learned that a geographical East doesn\u2019t exist; there isn\u2019t a place in the world that is called the East, it\u2019s only a direction. As soon as we clear the field of all misunderstandings, you can face, from a design perspective, the social and political themes that define it,<\/em>\u201d states Tal Erez, chief curator of the JDW, and Anat Safran, artistic director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n