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
Yael Atzmony is an artist and potter, a senior lecturer and head of materials in the Department of Ceramic Design and Glass. Atzmony is magna cum laude graduate of Haifa University's Faculty of Art and winner of the Maud Friedland Excellence Award in pottery.
Using a wide range of media (sculpting, illustration, video and installation), Atzmony explores the connection between symbol and place and deals with issues such as memory and material. Her works have been displayed in both solo and group exhibitions in Israel and across the world. Among her solo exhibitions - Periscope Gallery, Benyamini House, the Artists' House in Tel Aviv, Keramik Museum Berlin, Wan Fung Gallery in Beijing and the Ceramic Art and Perception Gallery in Sydney, to name a few.
Atzmony has taken part in symposia and international artist residency programs. Among them, the Ceramics Symposium in Bechinyé The Czech Republic, guest artist with Amsterdam's Rietveld Academie, guest artist with Burg University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany. In addition, Atzmony is a frequent panelist in the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport's Design Awards.
One of Atzmony's most notable projects is 'Tracing Oblivion,' which displayed in Israel and Europe. The project was based on extensive research of testimonies and map schemes of the Sobibor Death Camp in Poland. One more of Yael's projects is 'Forest Path', wherein she placed objects in the deep waters of Ramla's ‘pool of arches’ site which correlated with a video art piece she presented at the Benyamini House gallery.
Ory Bartal is the head of the Department of Visual and Material Culture in Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. Bartal is a Japanologist focusing on contemporary Japanese design including industrial and fashion design as well as manga and visual communication. Bartal completed his M.B.A. in the Department of International Business Administration at the Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo in a joint project with the Carnegie Mellon University in the USA He then studied advanced studies toward M.Des. in the Industrial Design department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. He completed his Ph.D. at the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Tel Aviv, specializing in contemporary visual culture. His book “Postmodern Advertising in Japan: Seduction, Persuasion and the Tokyo Art Directors Club” was published in 2015. The book deals with Japanese advertising, the connection between aesthetics and contemporary consumer culture and the blur boundaries between branding and art. His second book “Critical Design in Japan: Material Culture, Luxury and the Avant-Garde” published in 2020. This book presents the post-war designers that made decisions and created artifacts that radically altered and reshaped the course of Japanese design history. The book shows how their avant-garde design involves an encounter between postmodern aesthetics, critical theory, and new economic rules operating as a critical sociopolitical agent.
Nitsan Debbi is a product designer and a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design. Through her design work she strives to integrate the past with the future including technology and cultural aspects of design. The theme of Nitsan’s work is based on the approach of observation and study of the present with the goal of forward looking.
Nitsan works at Naoto Fukasawa Design office based in Tokyo, practices in a variety of fields, such as electronic equipment, furniture and exhibition design. The firm advocates a simple, understated and accurate approach to objects, a poetic design that relates to small but significant moments of our daily life.
In 2011 Nitsan established Studio BET together with Liora Rosin. Studio BET found great pleasure in converting everyday wonders into matter and shape, by integrating old crafts and modern technology in the studio work.
Nitsan had completed a B.A. in Industrial Design in 2008 at the Holon Institute of Technology in Israel and a Masters Degree in Industrial Design in 2011 at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. She received a special award for her research studies at the 'Science of Design' department, Musashino art university, Tokyo.
Graphic designer, creator and head of Bezalel’s undergraduate Department of Visual Communication. Specializes in complex systems design, typography, book design, and branding for public, cultural, arts, and architectural institutions. Founding partner of Studio Gimmel 2, which has been operating in the local and international design field for over a decade and a half. Recipient of several awards, including the DAM Best Architectural Book Award, Tokyo TDC, and the Ministry of Culture Design Prize. Holds a B.Des. in Visual Communication from Bezalel and is pursuing a Master’s degree in the Program in Gender Studies at Bar Ilan University.
Prof. Dor Guez's photography, video, essays, and lecture-performances explore the relationship between art, narrative, and memory. Interrogating personal experiences and official accounts of the past, Guez raises questions about contemporary art's role in narrating unwritten histories and re-contextualizing visual and written documents. In the past 20 years, his studies and artistic work focus on archival materials and photographic practices of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as mapping traces of violence in the landscape. Guez received his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University and earned his professorship from Bezalel Academy of the Arts and Design. He is the head of the Master's Program in Fine Arts.
To date, 8 catalogues have been published internationally about Guez's practice. Publishers include Distanz, New England Press, and A.M Qattan Foundation. Guez's work has been displayed in over 40 solo exhibitions worldwide and participated in numerous group exhibitions.
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Dr. Gal Hertz is the head of the Visual and Material Culture Department at Bezalel. He is a Germanist and a cultural researcher. His research creates a connection between the history and philosophy of science and cultural studies. He examines the rise of social disciplines around 1900 in the German-speaking world, such as criminology, sociology, sexology, law and psychiatry; This is from an affinity to popular culture, development of the press and media, theater, literature, and art. According to Hertz, the connecting point between seemingly unrelated fields is the establishment of a social order based on a new imagined normative base. Hertz holds a master's degree and a doctorate from the Cohn Institute at Tel Aviv University, pursued post-doctoral studies at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL Berlin), and taught at both Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin. After that he was co-director of the research project "Humanities in Conflict Zones" at the Minerva Humanities center, and served as a research and teaching fellow at the Cohn Institute and the School of Cultural Studies at Tel Aviv University. In parallel to his work at the university, he is the editor of "MiNituk LeShiluv" (“From Disconnection to Integration”), an academic journal of the Ministry of Education Department for the Education of Children and At-Risk Youth, in which he is also involved in the processes of training teaching staff and in the development and implementation of the department's approach: therapeutic pedagogy.
Jossef Krispel is an artist, painter, and the head of the Department of Fine Arts at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, where he has served as a senior lecturer since 2006. He holds both Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) and Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degrees from Bezalel. In his work, Krispel raises questions about the definition and the position of a painting in relation to the painted surface, and suggests seeing it as a mask, a screen, a shell, or a coating. He has been featured in many solo exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Palazzo Riccardo Medici in Florence, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, and at the Haifa Museum of Art, to name just a few. He has won numerous awards; among them the 2008 Rappaport Young Artist Prize, the 2012 Ministry of Culture Award, and the 2006 Young Artist Award. His paintings are found in many collections, including that of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), and private collections in Israel and abroad. He lives and works in Jerusalem.
Photo Gallery
Animator and animation director and producer, founder of the Jerusalem based studio Mind The Gap Animation, that focuses on social and artistic issues, as well as independent content. Yael's films were screened and won awards in various festivals worldwide.
Yael also worked as a senior production manager at Walking The Dog studio in Brussels, on projects such as Where Is Anne Frank by Ari Folman, the series Royals Next Door, and The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol by Sylvain Chomet (Les Triplettes de Belleville, The illusionist).
In addition to series and film making, Yael conducts local and international animation and cross-media initiatives, such as Copro Foundation's Animarket – the first international animation coproduction market in Israel; Asif Israeli Animation Festival, part of the annual Animix Festival; Animation and spoken word projects such as Poetry in Motion with Poetry Slam Israel and Moving Words with Arts By The People; and many more.
Holds a B.F.A. cum laude from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, in the department of Screen-based arts.
Elissa Rosenberg is a landscape architect and associate professor in the Graduate Program in Urban Design, and also an associate professor (emerita) at the University of Virginia, where she taught from 1989 – 2007 and served as Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department. Since relocating to Israel, she has taught at the Technion and Tel Aviv University. Her teaching and research focus on landscape as a cultural practice and a model for contemporary urbanism, tying together the separate discourses of urbanism, ecology and landscape design. She teaches studios and courses on urban landscapes and post-industrial landscapes in the undergraduate and graduate programs. Her research lies at the intersection of contemporary landscape architecture and urban design with a focus on cultural landscapes, post-industrial landscapes, green infrastructure and mobility. Her recent publications have focused on Israeli landscapes, include Tel Aviv’s seaside urbanism, and the kibbutz as a laboratory for Israeli landscape modernism.
Rotem Ruff is Head of the Office of International Academic Affairs and a lecturer in the Department for Visual and Material Culture. She is also Associate Director at Artis, and has extensive experience in the curation and production of exhibitions, conferences and cultural events at museums and other Israeli and international cultural venues, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Haifa Museum of Art. Ruff is the co-founder and co-director of REACTIK, an International Erasmus+ Jean-Monnet Network, researching EU Cultural Diplomacy and Policy.
Ruff holds a B.A. and M.A. in Art History from Hunter College, New York. She served on the International Council of the renowned television series Art21 and on the judging panel of the Landau Prize. She currently sits in the Israeli Lottery Committee for the Arts, the International Exposure dance festival, and DocAviv film festival.
Merav Salomon is an international Illustrator and a Book Artist who published over 15 books. She is the founder of Salomon & Daughters books, an independent publishing house dedicated to publishing visual books for adults.
Salomon is a Professor at the VC Graduate program and at the department of Visual Communication. She is one of the founding members of the Art & Design Teaching Centre. She served as the Head of the Illustration studies from 2007- 20018.
Salomon’s artwork have been exhibited in galleries, museums and academies all around the world, such as the Troisdorf Picture-book Museum in Germany, Summerset House in London, The Jewish Museum in Bologna, the Tel-aviv Museum, and more. Her Artist book “The archive of the Hand of Chance” is part of the Israeli Museum permanent collection.
Salomon's work have won many international prizes such as The UK Association of Illustrators Gold medal for best illustrated book 2013, the CA magazine Illustration Annual Excellence award 2016, the Society of Illustrators NY 55th Illustration Annual Gold medal 2015. Her work was published several times in American Illustrators, 3x3 magazine, How magazine, Print Magazine, DPI magazine and more. She is 2014 winner of the Israel’s Ministry of Culture Best Designer awards.
Beside her artistic work Salomon works as an international professional illustrator doing commissioned work ever since she graduated from the Graphic Design department at Bezlal in 1993.
Dr. Shaul Setter, head of the Master's Program in Policy and Theory of the Arts (M.A.), is a lecturer and writer in the fields of art, literature, and theory. He holds a master's degree from Tel Aviv University and a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. He deals with the relationship between aesthetics and politics, literature and art of the 20th and 21st centuries, political thought, continental philosophy, and critical theory. His doctoral thesis discusses neo-modernist art projects ranging from Europe to Israel/Palestine. His book on Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Genet, and the Palestinian struggle in the 1970s was published in 2021. His articles have been published in academic journals, reference books, and catalogs. For several years, he was the art critic for Haaretz. Since 2019, he has edited “Theory and Criticism”, a journal for theoretical thought and critical review, which is published in Hebrew twice a year by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
Prof. Els Verbakel is a founding partner of Derman Verbakel Architecture and Head of the School of Architecture at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. She was a faculty member at the Technion in Haifa, Columbia University, NYC, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and Princeton University, New Jersey. Els has earned her PhD in Architecture from Princeton University, a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University, and a Graduate Degree in Civil Engineering and Architecture from the University of Leuven, Belgium. She served as the editor of two books: “In Search of the Public. Notes on the Contemporary American City” and “Constellations: Constructing Urban Design Practices” as well as the Architectural Design (AD) Magazine on the theme “Cities of Dispersal.”
Illustrator and graphic designer. Graduated with excellence from the Department of Visual Communication in Bezalel and teaches there several illustration classes.
Eloa Illustrates children's books, graphic novels, editorial illustrations, and specializes in illustrated branding as well. His works won ‘the Israel Museum Award’ for Children's Book Illustration, a silver Medals from the American Society of Illustrators, The Israeli Design Award and more.
He has exhibited a variety of works in Israel and abroad, including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2017), the Israeli Design Museum, Holon (2019), the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv (2016), Tel-Aviv Illustration Week (2015) and more.
Sharan Elran is an artist-designer and a PhD student at the computer science Dept. at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His academic and artistic research focuses on digital fabrication of ceramics and algorithmic design. Before going back to Israel Sharan was based in Brooklyn NY and was the ceramic designer for lightexture, a boutique handcrafted lighting studio. Sharan teaches courses in digital ceramics at Bezalel. He holds a B.Sc. in physics and computer science from Bar Ilan University and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Sharan’s work has been exhibited in the USA and Israel and is included in museum and private collections.
Zeev Engelmayer is an artist, illustrator, comic book artist, performer, activist, and lecturer in the Department of Visual Communication at Bezalel.
Zeev's work is published in the national and alternative press over the years . He creates illustrated books, independent comic books and animated projects .
His Works feature in many exhibitions in galleries and museums in Israel and around the world, recently his retrospective exhibition at the City Hall Museum in Tel Aviv was selected for "Exhibition of the Year 2016".
A retrospective book of his illustrations and works was published by "Am Oved" publishing house And in 2016 the book "Journey to Vulgaria" was published, which brings together his alternative work.
He won many awards and participated in projects with international artists, as well as with fashion designers who created works inspired by his works. And also collaborates with actors, filmmakers and musicians.
Zeev served as a judge in design competitions and as a member of a recognition committee on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Museums and Plastic Arts.
Often appears in the character of "Shoshke", a comic book character he drew, through which he creates shows and activist actions to promote tolerance. Shoshke has received recognition and publicity, and articles have been written about her in the press and in academic journals in Israel and around the world.
In 2019, Engelmayer won the "Walking Man" award from the Tel Aviv Municipality for his activist acts against incitement and racism and entered the "100 Influencers of Israel" list for 2019 by "Der Marker" magazine.
Sharon Etgar (b. 1975) is an Israeli artist, whose practice includes painting and
collage-making.
Etgar is a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (1997-2001)
as well as the Jerusalem Studio School for Painting and Drawing (2003-2007).
Etgar's work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in a wide range of public and private collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers Univesity, New Jersey, and the Werner and Sarah-Ann Kramarsky Collection. Etgar lives and works in Tel Aviv and teaches at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
A multi-sensory artist working simultaneously in diverse media: video-photography-installation-performance-drawing-printmaking-text-sound.
In my works over the years I have formulated, refined, and elaborated a visual language with which to articulate the private body's inner realms and grant them visibility in the external space.
The body as a specific site, here, in this vicious, hurting and hurtful, ever-so-glorious land.
I operate in constant motion, questioning and challenging notions of gender, social and political definitions, between and within life and art. Searching day and night, trying to touch the body's burning skin, to expose and eradicate stubborn ailments, to address tough questions, to awaken and shed light on memories long lost in hibernation_oblivion.
Concurrently, I operate in the academic field as an active professor, teaching from my own personal perspective, bequeathing the possibility to follow different paths in the art world.
I live, work, and try to keep breathing in south Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
Illustrator, lecturer and curator, artistic editor and comic book artist, engages in writing that expresses childhood motifs significantly. Lecturer in the Department of Screen Arts, and the Department of Visual and Material Culture.
Farber is a graduate of the Visual Communication Department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, an award winner and a Sharet Foundation scholarship in undergraduate studies. His final project, which dealt with grotesque illustrations of political figures, was purchased shortly thereafter and formed the basis for the first season of “The Harzufim”, the first Israeli political satire program whose protagonists were puppets, and aired on Channel 2. He also received an excellence scholarship in graduate studies in screenwriting at Tel Aviv University.
He illustrated children's books and in many magazines. He initiated and edited the bestselling "Still Optimistic - Artists Painting Dudu Geva", published by Zamora-Pavilion, and curated the accompanying exhibition at the Holon Institute of Technology Gallery, with 120 illustrators and one Dudu Geva. He has also curated and exhibited in numerous exhibitions.
He has won numerous awards, including the Rabinowitz Foundation for the Arts, the Lottery Council for Culture and the Arts, and a prize and first place at the Illustration Week in Tel Aviv. In recent years, he has edit, illustrated, and published the graphic trilogy "Isaac's Notebooks", based on the diary of his late grandfather.
