First Born Festival | 2026

For the First Born Festival, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem presents a number of exhibitions that include dozens of works from across its departments, alongside collabrations with other academies.

The exhibition Bezalel Initiative in the Beit Ha’am building presents works by students and graduates of the Departments of Photography, Screen-based Arts, and Fine Arts. The exhibition was conceived under the joint curatorship of artists and lecturers Rona Yefman, Sharon Balaban, and Talia Israeli. The works respond to the architecture, history, and local contexts of the Beit Ha’am building, offering critical and poetic reflections on the environments we inhabit—the interactions in the public space, and the coexistence of urban and wild nature in the local city landscape.

On May 20, at 17:00 the first part of a selection of video works by students and graduates of the Departments of Screen-based Arts, Photography, and Fine Arts will be screened in the auditorium of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School. At 19:00, following the screening, the multi-disciplinary performance ׳Plan B – The Promised Land׳ will be presented. The performance, combining a live Jazz soundtrack with an experimental-narrative film, is a collaboration between the Department of Screen-based Arts at Bezalel and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. At 19:45, the second part of the video works will be screened.

At the entrance to the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio, Bezalel presents 'Corporeal Hierarchy', a solo exhibition by Amir Cohen, a graduate of the Department of Ceramics and Glass Design. The exhibition is curated by Yael Atzmoni. The exhibition deals with the body in a state of sustained tension. On the surface, the works project stability, heft, and self-assurance; yet, they are defined by pressure, alertness, imbalance, and uncertainty—qualities that emerge in a body living in a state of continual trauma and survival.  

The group exhibition ׳Acoustic Imagery׳, on display in the Center for Middle Eastern Classical Music, presents video works by students and graduates of the Department of Visual Communication, curated by Yael Burstein. The works in the exhibtion, combining, movement, time, and attentiveness, offer an array of possibilities for a story that does not rely on traditional cinematic narrative.

On the stage of the Center for Middle Eastern Classical Music, the performance ׳Toward the Makam and Beyond׳, brings together traditional and contemporary compositions performed by the Center’s instructors Ron Cohen and Idan Elmalem, alongside students and graduates of the Center: Hillel Leibson, Nimrod Meidan, Noga Meltzer, Itai Feruz, Netanel Rocker and Neria Lahiani. The performance featuers a guest appearcance by VJ Nitai Kinkulkin, a student in Bezalel’s Department of Screen-based Arts. The event is part of a forthcoming collaboration between the two institutions.

The exhibitions in First Born Festival were made possible through the Bezalel Initiative—a joint endeavor of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, the Russell Berrie Foundation for the Economic and Cultural Development of Jerusalem City Center, and the Jerusalem Municipality. The program illuminates the

worlds of creative practice and research across Jerusalem’s art and design academies and cultural institutions, offering inter-institutional cooperation and public art and cultural events in the city center.

Curator, Bezalel Initiative program: Ilanit Konopny
Assistant Curator, Bezalel Initiative program: Mina Reingold
Producer, on behalf of Bezalel, First Born Festival: Roni Shohat

Bezalel Initiative
Tuesday | 19.5.26 | 17:00-23:00
Wednesday | 20.5.26 | 17:00-23:00
Beit Ha’am building

Bezalel Initiative - video works
Wednesday | 20.5.26 | 17:00-19:00
The auditorium of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School

Plan B – The Promised Land
Wednesday | 20.5.26 | 19:00-21:00
The auditorium of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School

'Corporeal Hierarchy'
Wednesday | 20.5.26 | 17:00-23:00
Nissan Nativ Acting Studio

Acoustic Imagery
Wednesday | 20.5.26 | 17:00-23:00
The Center for Middle Eastern Classical Music

Toward the Makam and Beyond
Tuesday | 19.5.26 | 20:00-22:00
The Center for Middle Eastern Classical Musi