Designs on Jerusalem: Hansen House hosts event devoted to everyday aesthetics around us

Someone in the Jerusalem Design Week team has evidently done their homework on current seasonal sporting goings on and came up with a catchy moniker for this year’s edition of the event – Match Point.

No one in the artistic or organizational setup is making evasive or subtly intellectual efforts to apologize for the clearly populist banner. And why should they? The week, which takes place July 9-16 at its perennial berth of Hansen House, feeds off major sporting events taking place around the globe and even here, this summer.

There is the obvious association with Wimbledon, the tennis world’s most prestigious tournament, which will be in progress in London during Design Week.

Crosslinguistic shenanigans notwithstanding, the sporting context is clearly integral to the forthcoming design-based – free admission it should be noted – program, which this year was crafted by joint artistic directors Sonja Olitsky and Roni Azgad-Hamburger. The latter, making her debut as joint programmatic helmsperson, is a filmmaker with a background in visual communication, while Olitsky focuses predominantly on the aesthetic and informational possibilities on offer in the field of typography.

Azgad-Hamburger says the program covers numerous bases that inform our day-to-day lives. “There are so many issues we relate to, like the connection between typography and sport. And there are more complex subjects, such as why victory is important to us – why we keep on making so much effort to win.”

You don’t need to be blessed with youthful short-term memory faculties to tie that into the national morale-stirring slogan “Yahad Nenatze’ah” (Together We Will Win) which could be seen everywhere around the country during the dark days between Oct. 7, 2023, and the release of our last hostage in Gaza.

Azgad-Hamburger says there is much more to the Hansen House bash than what meets the eye. “Design Week may be a joyful festival of culture and images, but, in fact, it offers an opportunity to ask searching questions about our reality.”

The chief curators opted for athletic endeavor as a conceptual conduit for getting to grips with our existential circumstances. “There are a lot of works that take a critical approach and, through the prism of competitive sport, try to understand what it means to sustain our morale; why we have to encourage ourselves all the time; what glory is; what victory looks like; and what the significance of the [FIFA World Cup trophy] statuette is.”

There is some nuts-and-bolts exploration in the festival lineup. One exhibition in particular spills an unforgiving, sobering searchlight on troubling, behind-the-scenes machinations that cast an ominous shadow on almost every aspect of our lives.

“We have an exhibition called ‘Control Room’ which addresses data, monitoring, the fact we are constantly being watched and counted; and measuring us, we measure ourselves.”

The subject of control crops up elsewhere in the Design Week itinerary.

There is also an intriguing comparative take on the interface between sport and violence. Team coaches will often use terms such as “fighting” and “being prepared to die for the cause,” as athletes increasingly push their bodies and minds closer to the edge in a bid to outdo their rivals and achieve their moment or two of glory.

Naturally, there are huge financial gains at stake here, too, as sporting events are trumpeted through ever more pervasive and hyperbolic presentation formats sponsored by the behemoths of industry.

As levels of athletic performance rise, the gaps between success and failure – few remember the runners-up, even if the margin between first and second place was minuscule – narrow to almost imperceptible proportions.

Hence the do-or-die ethos and the all-consuming, intoxicating raison d’être that keep sportsmen and women pounding around the running track, lifting weights, spinning those bicycle pedals, and aiming for that infinitesimal improvement on the current benchmark.

Apparently, this is not just a contemporary phenomenon, with Olitsky and Azgad-Hamburger dipping into their history books for some yesteryear hooks.

“The ancient Spartans viewed physical training as preparation for both games and battle, shaping the body for discipline and endurance... playing field and battlefield converge, and the distinction between players and warriors begins to blur,” they note.

The correlation with our current, seemingly interminable, security straits is self-evident. According to the curators, that goes for other challenging, more mundane, areas of life, too, including various wares freely accessible in stores.

“The relationship between war and play tightens further: battles are often framed as competitive games, while games function as preparation for battle,” they say. “Within this cultural mechanism, military discourse is inscribed in material and social practices visible on the field, from the discipline required of the profession, to ideals of total sacrifice, to the universe of sporting objects such as fencing gear, javelins, rifles, and even baseball bats, which outside the pitch are at times associated with acts of street violence.”

That comes across in the aptly named “Sparta” exhibition, which cuts through genres and various areas of artistic discipline. The equally pertinently titled “Ultra” slot in the show – with works by Michael Berkovic Greif, Netta Nahardiya, and Talya Shalit – takes an incisive look at the various components of high-profile sporting gatherings, including the inescapably visceral sonic side.

Among my earliest memories is squeezing into the stands at Old Trafford, home of the then mighty Manchester United – in 1960s Britain there were few seats in soccer stadiums, occupied exclusively by the well-heeled fans – and being swept away by the unbridled fervor of the clamorous supporters around me.

That sense of passion and feral expression is central to the “Ultra” mix, counterbalanced, complemented, and/or augmented by some dry stats, as well as architectural and informational components.

“This installation is structured by hybridization: a stadium PA [public address] tower, tasked with taking score, keeping time, and broadcasting authoritative information, coalesces with a church bell tower, whose role is the division and distinction of time in accordance with liturgical ritual,” the Design Week website notes.

To anyone who has attended a headlining sports event, particularly in a soccer stadium heaving with tens of thousands of tightly packed fans, the religious context will feel like a seamless confluence.

“‘Sparta’ will be located in an attic,” Azgad-Hamburger advises. Perhaps the choice of site is somehow designed to impart a sense of less-than-glamorous – albeit clichéd - conditions and, thereby, convey the seeming dissonance between basically harmless sporting activities and lethal military altercations. “The exhibition examines the relationship between war and sport, players and combat soldiers.” It is, says the curator, something of a topsy-turvy state of affairs. “The connection is very close, but it is also very confusing.”

“We feel it is our job, with Design Week, to shine a light on these difficult questions, and to bring them to the fore,” adds Azgad-Hamburger.

A full 15 years after the event hit the local aesthetics scene running, with the perennial support of the Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Tradition Ministry, perhaps it is a suitable juncture for taking a step back from the earnest efforts of local artists and artists and posing that most basic of questions: is there such a thing as Israeli design? Is there something unique about what we create here and proffer to the global design scene that, in the current media-driven political climate, the world is willing to take note of at all?

Azgad-Hamburger has no absolutely qualms about singing our praises to the skies, even if our regional firmament is periodically blighted by incoming rockets.

“Our situation in the field of design is crazy, truly astounding,” she exclaims, although adding an all too familiar caveat. “Our problem is not design; it is budgets. Sometimes we see designs from abroad and we say ‘Wow! They are so good.’ But that’s not because they are more creative than we are, or they use more advanced materials than we have. It is simply because they have bigger budgets and greater support, and residencies.”

All of which only serves to underscore the value of our very own annual event for beleaguered assistance-starved local designers. “That makes Design Week such an important platform. We are supporting 100 new works. We produce them and work with the designers and artists from the word go.”

Amazingly, that financial largesse extend beyond our narrow geographic borders. “We also support international projects. For example, we have a Japanese architectural studio coming here which will exhibit a very large work.”

That references a Design Week venture by the NOIZ team from HQ Architects which features in the “Control Room” set.

That must be quite a feather in the curators’ cap. These days, tempting anyone from overseas to express a positive opinion about anything related to this country, let alone actually make the trip over here and collaborate with their Israeli counterparts, is a rarity.

“It’s not easy. We are paying the cost of this [security and political] situation,” Azgad-Hamburger declares.

But numerical paucity does not mean there are going to be compromises on quality, just to have some offshore name or two in the festival lineup.

“Our standards are very high,” she continues. “The international projects we have are on an amazing level. The Japanese work is technologically very sophisticated, and also very deep in psychological terms.”

Design Week is not just about casting an eye or two across the visual collections on display. There is some more cerebral and entertaining fare to be had in the programmatic agenda, too.

“There are some great lectures. We have a very rich content section, which was put together by Yuval Mendelson. There are lectures and movie screenings with live musical accompaniment.”

The organizers are also offering the public opportunities to get a more immersive handle on the creations on display. “There are lectures by artists who present their work. And there will be talks by the curators.”

There will be plenty to choose from, although choices will have to be made. “There are talks and events going on simultaneously at three places – outside, where there will also be screenings of World Cup games; at the inner patio, against the backdrop of the wonderful work by HQ Architects; and there will also be stuff going on at the Tea Room.”

I press Azgad-Hamburger on the existence of Israeli design as a clearly discernible school of thought and visual application. Is there a philosophical approach to aesthetics that feeds off this yet young cultural melting pot, with millennia-deep roots?

The chief curator initially opts for a circumnavigatory line but soon warms to the theme. “It is very much a matter of individual taste. And we always want to create things that look like they come from abroad. That is actually something very Israeli rather than an Americanization or Europeanization concept.”

We get into historical climes. “I think Israel, and as Jews, we are survivors. We are flexible. Even during the two months that we endured the terrible war with Iran, we never stopped working, and we didn’t want to give up on this event. It was obvious that, if we stopped working, there would be no Design Week event this summer. We simply were not going to even contemplate such an eventuality. There is this inner force that drives us, as artists and people of culture.”

We eventually get down to brass tacks. “I think that comes across in our design work.”

That is partly attributable to our national-ethnic timeline. “If you ask me I believe that, frequently, Israeli design is a sort of hybrid between the past and the present. I think we have many historical narratives, including from not so far in the past – Israel is still a young country. We still live and relate those narratives.”

The prerequisite artistic leap-of-faith is, says Azgad-Hamburger, core to our creative endeavor. “I think Israelis are very courageous in their design work. There is a lot of daring. Often it is not about making something beautiful. Rather, they look to create something that is impudent and compelling.”

Challenging life circumstances can prompt an escapist attitude but not, Azgad-Hamburger believes, in her line of work. “We live here on the edge, and, as a result, designers are not afraid to go to the edge in their creative output.” Which puts one in mind of the age-old cliché about an artist having to suffer for their work. “That’s right!” Azgad-Hamburger laughs. “We don’t have to look for suffering in this country. It is definitely part of life here.”

At least when it comes to coming up with quality artistic wares, that is a definite boon. Naturally, we would all be happy to forgo the reason for that beneficial side effect, but if – hopefully just for now – we have to contend with the bad stuff, why not enjoy some of the ensuing aesthetic and life-affirming fruits, such as those lined up for us at Hansen House next week?