Portfolio | “Working with glass is like a dance”

In an interview with Portfolio, Amir Cohen, a graduate of the Department of Ceramics and Glass Design, talks about how he came to study in the department, his receiving of the Deborah Blumenthal Prize for Outstanding Final Project for 2023–2024, and his professional path since graduating. About his studies at Bezalel: “I had wanted to study at Bezalel and nowhere else, and while trying to get into the Department of Industrial Design, a friend studying in the Department of Ceramics and Glass Design invited me to join its workshops. I did and that was where everything changed and probably began for me. I knew where I belonged... As I said, I came to the Department of Ceramics and Glass Design by a miracle; I fell in love and stayed. Glass is a material that not everyone can touch. It is a material that can be very frustrating to work with. It’s challenging, but it works for me.”

Recently, Amir participated in the Stanislav Libenský Award—an annual international competition dedicated to graduates in the field of glass design—where he presented the work Spine, from his final project Weights in Space. He said about the project: “My final project is made with glass in a variety of techniques: casting, blowing, mold blowing and glass combined with Plexiglas and silicone. I dealt with disrupting the complete form using amorphous glass objects on the verge of collapse. An absurd world of contrasts in transparent color, which deals with the question of stability and instability in life.”

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Amir is a teaching assistant and a research assistant working with Lena Dubinsky who coordinates the “Materials Design” research group in the department and with the Research and Innovation Authority, engaged in developing glass that does not require heating in order to be shaped. He also recently won a scholarship from the American AIDA organization, through which he will intern at the Corning factories in the United States.

Continue reading on the Portfolio website
For Amir’s final project, visit the Bezalel 2023 Alumni websiteFor more information on the Stanislav Libenský Award competition