The guest lecturer at the Negev Lab session that met on March 23, 2018, was the photography artist
Adi Ness, who spoke about Israeli identity in the creative arts from a Negev perspective. Using some of his photographs, which reflect the complexities of a multiple-identity society, he took the participants on a shared journey through the artistic process of staged photography. Ness explored the tension between the personal and the social, as well as the tension between challenges and opportunities of life in the periphery. He also explored the use of images from traditional texts in major representations of the Israeli ethos.
The Negev Lab series, led by
Dr. Ruth Calderon and
Dr. Adi Nir Sagi, is a forum that brings together leaders from the Negev to engage in shared study of issues related to local culture and artistic creativity, and serves as a source of inspiration. The fourth meeting of the series was attended by Mr. Moshe Vigdor, the director general of the Mandel Foundation–Israel. Participants included leading Negev figures who are involved in academia, public institutions, and cultural organizations active in local arts. The meeting was an opportunity for continued discussion about the meaning of local arts and for collaborative thinking about the unique challenges facing culture in the Negev.
