Describe your design with three words.
That’s a nice challenge, I would say: Conceptual, experimental and spontaneous.
Your works are between conceptual art and design. What’s more important? The idea or the function?
I definitely consider my works as design. There are so many approaches for design, it is so diverse and manifold. Yes, maybe it’s not so conventional to see a salt chair today, but we have the responsibility as thinkers to provoke and challenge the concepts of our own profession. Coming back to the question, I would say that the narrative can evoke many functions so when your work is smart, it’s already functional – the two go together.
Which was your first research? And what will be your next material experimentation?
I began experimenting during my Bachelor’s studies, but the first professional outcome was the Soilid project, which I completed during my Master’s studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven. We were asked by Vincent De Rijk to work an a recipe and I started mixing Soil with different natural materials and by chance I got this magnificent reaction when I mixed the soil with fungus – the soil started to swell up and doubled and even tripled in size. I baked this mixture and got a super strong material which was translated to a collection of seats.
I’m now doing my PhD research on Vegan Design and this new topic brings a lot of material experiments. I’m trying to challenge the industry and the common materials we use as designers through the design processes, which mostly include animal traces in them and we fail to recognize it. Materials like glue, glaze, pigments, plywood or tools that we use like plastic molds, sanding paper and so on, and so forth. For example I’m working on wood coating and pigments that are animal free and writing my thesis with a vegan pen, on a vegan paper I produce.
How does sustainability affect your ideas?
When you are living a vegan lifestyle, sustainability is an inseparable part of your existence. You are not only aware of your food, clothing and products you buy, but also of the waste you leave behind. When I take a closer look at my work, I mostly use products made in the manufacturing of something else, like in the salt project, or the textiles I weaved in my Neomadic project in which I used leftovers from the production of Ikea curtains.
I consume only local products, and I am always fully aware of fair trade and child labor.
Design, Art and Nature are three important principles of your research. What is the connection between nature and the choice of material?
I grew up in my parents’ plant nursery so natural materials were always around me and in large quantities. I guess I design mostly with reference to my experiences as a child surrounded by “nature”.
You have proposed a way to recristylize the desert of dead sea. Tell me the birth of this research.
The project started in the second year of my Master’s at the Design Academy Eindhoven. I had to write a thesis that would lead to a design proposal. While visiting the Dead Sea during the summer, I saw a mountain of salt neglected in the desert. I became aware of the fact that the “white gold” had lost its value. My main concern and hesitation was: what can I do with a mountain of salt? This salty mountain, was actually waste from the manic production line of potash and bromine in the Dead Sea factories. In addition to this mountain of salt, every year 20 million tons of salt sink to the bottom of the Dead Sea’s fifth pond, which is a great supply of free material that is just waiting there to become something.
After a few experiments I found a simple technique that wasn’t in use ever before – melting the salt. By reaching the melting point I could create giant crystals in a few minutes. My proposal had to deal with millions of tons every year, so I designed a collection of tiles and blocks that could be used in local architecture.
The project is developing into something bigger thanks to the introduction of the idea of “salt architecture”. How do you imagine it?
I just came back from a workshop at the Camargues in the south of France, where their salt factory is facing difficulties to survive as the demand for salt went down. The workshop organized by the atelier Luma in Arles, focused on new applications for salt. When I arrived to the working space, I saw just next to it a structure of Frank Gehry’s new building being built. My proposal for Luma was to crystalize the metal facade of Gehry’s Architecture. I thought that if a mega architect like Gehry would use salt in his work, it will bring this idea to the front and will trigger more creative minds to explore and comment on the opportunities assimilated in Salt Architecture. As desalination plants become the suppliers of fresh water in many countries, we get more salt as a by product. More wasted salt, in more places around the world, makes this idea more feasible outside the context of the Dead Sea.
I can imagine salt cities being built in the near future – white, glossy beautiful structures surrounding us.
In your vision, how is influent the comparison with users, with people?
Usually I work within concepts which are my own fascinations… But most likely other people can relate and correspond to. The use of the object is not central in my creation, it’s more about the idea behind a project which I want people to connect to. I see myself as a scholar who uses design as a platform to investigate experiences, realities or sensations through texts and material experimentation that (hopefully) provokes people to think and muse.
You are working for this project in Tel Aviv, do you think that your native country will be your working place for your life?
I’m currently based in Tel Aviv and I love love this city, but my lifestyle is totally nomadic – I’m working on international projects in the Netherlands and India, doing my PhD in Austria and exhibiting all over. I’m not really attached to any land, in my persona.