“First of all, I wanted to be sure that each designer could relate to the particular woman because for me, this was the most important thing,” she says. “If she didn’t like her or if something about her didn’t work for her or if she didn’t get passionate about her, I didn’t want her to make the clothing. It was funny. I felt like a matchmaker because each one of the designers called me and said, ‘Thank you! How did you know that I would love to do this?’ And they were ecstatic about it. And what I told them was, ‘Don’t think about anything besides what the woman would enjoy wearing.’”
But that was not the end of the process. Once each dress was made, another woman was selected to be photographed wearing it. The woman had to model the dress at a place in Jerusalem where the historical figure was likely to have worn it when she was alive. Among the “models” selected were actress Keren Mor, writer Zeruya Shalev, choreographer Renana Raz and singer Ester Rada. Actress Dana Ivgy, for example, wearing a dress by designer Aluma that was inspired by Queen Melisende, was photographed in the Crusaderperiod Tower of David Citadel Courtyard.
“What was really interesting to me was that each piece of work was like a triangle,” says Karavan. “There was the historical woman, then there was the designer, and then the woman modeling the dress. I felt that the moment I took the photo was the moment that all the points connected. For example, the moment with Shira, when we took her picture in S. Y. Agnon’s house, we were all shivering. Because we felt like Agnon was around and that he was happy that we finally brought Shira to his home.I mean, he couldn’t do that. It was a bunch of living triangles, with 30 women,” she explains.“Zeruya Shalev the writer really wanted to be the playwright Else Lasker- Schüler. And we took a picture of her in the Rehavia neighborhood where Else Lasker-Schüler lived and where Zeruya lives now. And Agnon’s Shira was German, and the model for her clothes is German - from the same town! So when we took these pictures, everything came together. That was the moment that I knew it was going to work,” says Karavan.“Suspicious Objects,” the companion exhibition of Jerusalem-inspired design, also works, but in a very different way.“A Summer of Inspiration: Threads and Suspicious Objects” will run until October 4 at The Tower of David Museum, Old City, Jerusalem. For further information, call 626-5333, 626-5310 or visit http://www.towerofdavid.org.il.
“When you think about the expression ‘suspicious objects’ here in Jerusalem, it’s always a bomb or some other bad thing,” says curator Tal Gur. “But this is an exhibition of ‘good’ things, good things that might make us uncomfortable because they are new. Suspicion of anything that’s new or different or foreign is a basic survival instinct. The suspicion instinct protects us from anything outside our comfort zone that threatens to disrupt it and bring disorder. Only curiosity and open-mindedness have the power to overcome this primal fear, to break open the defenses that surround us and expand our emotional and cognitive world.”The suspicious objects chosen for this exhibition are designed to do just that. Up in the museum’s Phasael Tower – the very spot from which watchmen once gazed beyond the city walls and warned of the approach of the “new and suspicious,” – the visitor is treated to design objects such as “In the Eye of the Beholder,” a wooden puzzle with assembly instructions in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Follow the Hebrew i n st r u c t i o n s and you will build the Western Wall. Follow the instructions in Arabic, and you construct the Dome of the Rock. The end result of following the English instructions is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Three languages, three assembly instructions, three different holy religious sites, all from the same little pieces of wood. Are designers Oded Gov and Adi Paz-Fingold merely suggesting that all three structures are made from the same Jerusalem stone, or are they implying that all three religions spring from the same Middle Eastern psychic impulse? Let the viewer decide.The viewer can also ponder design objects that range from the whimsical – stray Jerusalem street cats wearing tied-on Lion of Judah manes – to the cleverly flippant: a carrying case for a Mac iBook computer designed to look like a blue velvet tallit bag, as well as a necktie designed to resemble a jihadist’s keffiyeh. Some objects are designed to amuse, others perhaps to outrage. But all the objects invite us to think and to test some of our basic assumptions. The incendiary tops of a pack of safety matches are designed to look like the skyline of Jerusalem’s Old City. The object, created by designers Roi Vaspi Yanai and Dan Hocberg, is called “Jerusalem is Inflammable.”And we have all seen souvenir snow globes that display iconic landmarks like London’s Big Ben and Paris’s Eiffel Tower. Designers Mey and Boaz Kahn’s snow globe from Jerusalem features the towers of the controversial Holyland Development. Shake it, and stardust falls instead of snow.With these two concurrent exhibitions, Lieber is clearly taking the museum in some new directions and reaching out to new audiences.“I hope we can attract people who have never been here before,” she says. “You know, history and archaeology are very interesting for us, but not everyone is interested. But fashion and design are ways to bring other people here, perhaps younger people, perhaps people from Tel Aviv – people from other cultural worlds. I hope these exhibitions will reach a large, new audience. I want this museum to be relevant to today’s world.”Inspired by visits to such institutions as the Museum of London, Lieber declares, “I want to make the Tower of David not just a museum about the history of Jerusalem. I want this to become the museum of the city of Jerusalem.”