The Ashdod Art Museum’s newest display showcases personal stories of the urban city
Attempting to truly capture the personality of Ashdod, artists Daniel Shoshan and Amit Matalon simply created display boxes for the residents of the city to place a personal item in. Within the past two years the artists have collected thousands of items from locals to showcase in the glass cases as well as words that conceptualize the city, coined “identity capsules.”
© Dafna Gzit
Placing the cases like bricks on top of one another, the exhibit pieces began to act as a reflection of the city. This is a continuing project by Shoshan and Matalon, who work in the Experimental Art and Architecture Laboratory at the Technion in Haifa. Their work includes researching concepts like, urbanism, aesthetics, community, public arenas, mass media, advertising and cultural and social symbols. The artists hope to blur the lines of architecture and art for observers and users to build a new “conceptual-architectural language.”
The exhibition offers visitors a different perspective to the first planned city in Israel post-independence. Entrance to this exciting exhibit is NIS 30 for non-residents, NIS 25 for the residents of Ashdod, and NIS 15 for pensioners.
© Dafna Gzit
The Ashdod Project: Portrait of a City, on display through Jan. 19