Excavating the matter, unearthing the soul
Experimental Project/Artifact Design, 2017
On the Edge, Israeli Paper exhibition | Commissioned by MUZA, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel
Photos by: Leonid PederulA group of artifacts resembling restored ancient pottery are, in fact, made of tens of thousands of pages cut from volumes of the Encyclopedia Hebraica, an expired cultural institution. The raw material of densely layered pages was carved, creating vessels encoded with valuable, historical and cultural knowledge. Thus, the artifacts both preserve knowledge, and contain within themselves a visual treasure. Discovering it within the pottery reconstructs the surprise and excitement of leafing through the encyclopedia. The scale of the pottery derives from the measurements of the books used. One can feel its pages by looking at the surface. The vessels were digitally designed and cut with contemporary laser technology; however, layering the papers and binding them into an object reintroduced manual labor into the process.
