judaica

Sacred Scenarios

Imagine a religious object for a moment. What comes to mind? Perhaps an ornate, tarnished silver candlestick? A simple wooden cross? Or a string of prayer beads? This is no coincidence: most religious objects we encounter carry with them a weight of tradition, collective memory, and an ancient symbolic world.

Rituals and traditions around us serve as a contemporary connection to our origins and heritage. The objects that accompany these practices tell our story through materials, technology, form, and more.

By engaging with sacred objects from diverse religions and communities, this course seeks to foster dialogue, listening, understanding, and sharing - all through the joy of making and creating.

In an era where the beautiful aspects of religion and tradition - such as community, belonging, and humanism - are often overshadowed by fundamentalism, isolationism, and ignorance, it is time to illuminate what connects us and makes us human.

This course offers an alternative approach to designing ritual objects: we will explore how history and heritage can shape contemporary design, learn how archetypes and sensory experiences create meaning, and re-examine rituals with a focus on the human aspect and the choreography surrounding each object.

Through a series of exercises, excursions, and encounters, we will decipher the unique qualities of sacred objects and understand how ritual and material merge to create objects that generate a dialogue between history, culture, heritage, and contemporary design.