Local Mosaic: visual and material cultures in Israel

The course will examine the diverse cultural appearances that characterize non-hegemonic ethnic and racial groups in Israeli society. By examining artifacts from a variety of mediums (plastic art, photography, fashion, architecture and dance), we will look at the ways in which the “Other” artistic language contests, undermines and is reconciled with the Western cultural representations that characterize canonical culture in Israel. Presenting the “Other" voice in local art will coincide with clarifying the concepts of ethnicity and race and surveying the ways in which they are present in Western visual culture, in light of the different orientalist conventions that they contest and seek to challenge. This inquiry seeks to raise questions concerning methods of representation, exhibition spaces, narratives, style, and aesthetics, while examining where the Israeli society is located on the axis between a multiplicity of cultures and multiculturalism. We will become acquainted with the different artistic-cultural expressions by encountering cultural entrepreneurs who operate in exhibition spaces and other arenas to expose, present and draw out voices that are underrepresented in the local culture, as well as by looking at recent critical literature that engages with these issues.