Now on display at The Tel Aviv Crafts and Design Biennale, the outdoor, site-specific installation exploring global warming and our relationship with nature
May 2020 – February 2021
At MUSA, The Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv
Upon entering the MUSA Museum in Tel Aviv, visitors are confronted with a life-size, highly polished, stainless-steel Igloo, reflecting its desert-like surroundings.
This is the response of Ronen Bavly, founder of MAGENTA Workshop, to the theme of “First Person. Second Nature” set out by The Tel Aviv Craft and Design Biennale. Bavly juxtaposes the archetypical structure invented centuries ago by the Eskimos as a mean to survive the extreme weather in a new context, thus commenting on human interaction with nature.
E-gloo reflects and replicates the local landscape, and distorts its surroundings, blinding and warming the viewers while echoing vanishing traditions and melting glaciers. While humorously pointing out the dystopian consequences, yet to come to our planets.
The structure
The e-gloo was meticulously constructed by hand while using a complex mathematical computation to recreate the classical, clean form of the traditional structure. Sealed like a burial structure, the reflective stainless-steel building raises questions about the role of humans in the world and their responsibility to nature. Unlike a traditional igloo, which when no longer in use, dissolves into a puddle of water, e-gloo is a memorial monument to simpler time.
Curated by a team of Israel’s top design professionals, the Biennale presents a challenging perspective on material creation, expanding and highlighting the cultural, social, and visual dialogue between art, craft, and design. The connections created between past, present and future partake in the continually evolving narrative of local material culture.
