Day to day – Oren Arbel and Noam Tabenkin

Opening: Thursday, 12/03/20, 19:30

Closing: Saturday,11/07/20 , 14:00

Gallery Talk: Friday, 26/06/20, 11:30

We document our lives and environment through the vessels we make as designers.  This is our communal language, and it is important for us to sometimes stop the conversation about our children, work, washing – to meet and discuss color and form.

The work on a project begins usually in our studio but can flow into the house in the hours when the children are asleep. We wipe the table from dinner and place the plaster mold in the center and carve into the surface day to day objects. In an especially surrealist moment, Oren uses the child’s stroller to transport the delicate and fragile freshly cast vases to the kiln.

Sometimes we work together on all stages of the project and sometimes one makes and the other advises and balances.  Most of the work is made in clay using various techniques – sculpture, wheel-throwing, casting – combined with other materials.  We both collect objects – furniture, pieces of rusted metal, a concrete block that will make a good base for a sculpture. Combining the materials is fascinating for us and often these “collections” are the trigger for a new project.

We live in a small settlement, a kilometer and a half from the Syrian border and the closest town to us is Damascus. For at least one week a year it snows and in May the cherry blossoms bloom.   Our studio is an area that includes two stone sheds that were used in the previous century by Beduin shepherds as a winter shelter. We renovated and restored them with the support of the “Council for the Preservation of Israel Heritage” They are made of chiseled basalt stone that are laid “dry” unplastered with a concrete floor and tin roof.

We are a couple, a ceramic designer and an industrial designer, parents to three boys, living and creating together in the northern Golan Heights. Oren teaches design and wheel throwing at Tel Hai College, Haifa University and in the studio as well as guiding tour groups abroad. Noam designs furniture and interior spaces for inclusive schools run by the Inclo Association.  

back to top