Built on Sand, 2020, Dori (Doron) Oryan - Eretz Israel Museum

Built on Sand, 2020, Dori (Doron) Oryan

Photos: Hadar Saifan

What

Outdoor installation: kinetic sand; casting using digital manufacturing processes

Who

Dori (Doron) Oryan, b. 1969

Why

Dori Oryan’s work “Built on Sand” is a dynamic installation that changes over the course of the exhibition. Inspired by seaside sandcastles, Oryan created a special mold into which he poured sand, creating a series of replicated buildings that form an entire city. Their appearance calls to mind the Israeli landscape during the first decades of independence, as the Zionist vision of mass construction became a concrete need due to the waves of immigrants arriving in the country. Oryan’s city alludes to the rapid construction of inexpensive housing units, and represents the fantasy of conjuring entire cities out of the country’s sand dunes, while reflecting the gap between dream and reality, as the sandcastles are revealed to be crowded, identical, uninspired housing projects.

During the Biennale, Oryan will engage in an “evacuation and reconstruction” project: the housing blocks will gradually be dismantled and recast as new residential towers – representing the transition from the earlier Zionist vision to the new dream of urban towers, which replaces the romantic ideals of early statehood in an attempt to offer solutions for increased urban density.

דורי אוריאן הביאנלה במוזא צילום הדר סייפן 2
Photo: Hadar Saifan

Where

Outdoor installation at the Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts & Design, MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv