Department of Photography
המחלקה לצילום
قسم التصوير الفوتوغرافي
David Adika is a photographer, artist, and Head of the Photography Department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. A senior lecturer in the Department of Photography since 1999, he holds bachelor’s (BFA) and master’s (MFA) degrees from Bezalel.
David Adika’s work focuses on the visual and cultural facets of the local Middle Eastern space as a microcosm that reflects his social and family identity. His photographic corpus contains representations of various still life and portraits, blurring the boundaries between abstract conceptual language and lavish visual accuracy. Adika’s visual research explores intimate yet universal biographies, while the photographs unfold familiar and unfamiliar aspects of everyday life and highlight questions of taste and social status.
Adika has had many solo exhibitions in Israeli and international venues, among them Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Art Museum in Riga, Latvia, Bologna MUSEI, Casa Morandi, Italy, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, and Braverman Gallery in Tel Aviv. He has won many awards, including the Minister and the Emerging Artist Prizes from the Ministry of Culture and Sports, and the Jack Nailor Award for Photography. His photographs are included in many collections, such as the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Haifa Museum of Art, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Casa Morandi in Italy, the Knesset and private collections in Israel and abroad.
He lives in Jaffa and works in Jerusalem
Dr. Elad Persov, Faculty, M.Des Industrial Design, and expert in sustainable design management, system design, sustainable development. In 2005 he founded the Design Management track in the M.Des Program and managed it through the first decade. He represented Bezalel at numerous research meetings across Europe and published papers at various peer-reviewed conferences and journals. His Ph.D. dissertation "Sustainable Design Management: Educating Designers as Roles Change" was conducted at Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University, explored the interface between Higher Education and the design practice from a sustainability perspective. As a researcher, Elad participated in grant writing and research and management of DESURBS (FP7 2010-2015), CPUDP (COST 2014-2016), CLEVER (ERASMUS + 2015-2019), along with initiation of local industrial R&D collaborations. Throughout the years, Elad has promoted sustainability at Bezalel in partnership with lecturers and students by establishing the 'Bezalel Interdisciplinary Sustainable Design Group'. In 2020 he founded the Bezalel Center for Sustainable Development.