Galit Begas’ plastic bag shoes
Well known for its innovative and high level of forward-thinking in the arts and design, Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design can be proud of its creative students.
Proud enough to show their designs off to the world, which is what they will be doing in April when they send the work of 37 undergraduate and post-graduate students to Italy for Milan Design Week. The show, titled Thinking Hands, will showcase a wide range of design products that experiment with new material combinations and technological processes.
Ezri Tazari, one of the show’s curators and the head of the Master of Design program at Bezalel, said that “the philosophical background of the theme of the exhibition, ‘Thinking Hands’, comes from the new integration and combination possibilities in design today, enabled by the post-industrial radical change.”
The designs are not only visually fascinating, but some of them are eco-friendly as well.
Above, designer Galit Begas’ plastic bag shoes are made from what she calls “the perfect raw material” due to its colorful, cheap and readily available nature.
Custom-made soles attach to the various molded plastic bag shoe forms (similar to Israeli-designed Skins Footware), making them colorful, versatile, and relatively low on resources.
Ori Sonnenschein’s citrus peel bowl and cups
Ori Sonnenschein also decided to make use of a material that is often discarded, and found a way to reuse citrus fruit peels. Using microwave technology, Sonnenschein molded and hardened the peels, shaping them into beautiful ceramic-like shapes that he calls ‘Solskin Peels’.
Yael Friedman’s jewellery made from citrus peels
Similarly, Yael Friedman found a use for vegetable peels (image on the left), braiding and shaping them into funky jewelry. (Just don’t forget to take those rings off before washing your hands.)
Adi Zaffran Weisler (above) went a little bit larger in her adaptation of raw organic materials, and gathered unprocessed branches of wood to create stools. Her ‘RAWtation’ chairs fuse plastic rotation molding with raw wood.
:: Design Boom
Read more about sustainable design in Israel:
Elanit Neutra upcycles old inner tubes into handbags
Beauty Increases Sustainability, According to Designer Gadi Amit
Ten Sustainable Israeli Designers Who Reduce, Reuse & Recycle
Jan Eric Visser Experiments with Post Fossil Fuel Design
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
