Statement

Vision

 

Slowly, step by step from 1984 and ongoing

 

‏

- Reconnect science and art for creative solutions to  

  environmental issues.

 

- Narrowing the ever-growing gap between Human and  

  Nature

 

- Heal community/decision makers from their

  environmental indifference

 

-  Be part of creating the right values in reclamation and 

   preservation of environments in pain

 

-  Influence on environmental policy

 

-  Challenge artists to investigate and respond to  

   environmental issues in their artworks.

 

-  Causing deeper understanding of processes which occur 

   in nature and its intrinsic values.

 

-  Heal and restore damaged environments, especially 

   streams, as part of interdisciplinary teams.

 

-  Show, indicate, mark, daylight - insights, hidden

   details and processes in nature which we pay attention 

   to.

 

-  Mediate between community and their immediate

   environment, decision makers and communities,

   ecologists and industrialists.

 

-  Through the artworks - uplifting, surprise, create wonder,

    mystery, allow getting lost, by tools; photography,

    installations, video-arts, writings, story telling,

    walks and talks, workshops.

 

   Shai Zakai   ©

 

Concrete Creek 1999-2002 -
Shai Zakai, (artist statement)

1st stream reclamation via eco-art in Israel

"I would like there to exist places that are stable, unmoving, intangible, untouched, unchanging, deep-rooted; places that might be points of reference, of departure, of origin: ..to try meticulously to retain something, to cause something to survive; to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows, to leave somewhere a furrow, a trace, a mark or a few signs." Georges Perec, Paris 1973-74 .*

In my quests for visual expressions which would bring man and the environment closer together I have conceived of a reclamation plan which operates concurrently on the physical level – cleansing the stream, and on the social and spiritual level – healing people from their environmental indifference...

For me, an eco-artist is comparable to a doctor practicing alternative medicine, who would never offer you a painkiller, but would examine the body as a whole; or to a judge, who would send a transgressor to a rehabilitation program rather than to jail; to a philosopher who would always explore multiple versions and variations before he finds that singular insight; to “sublime nature” that often invokes in its beholder magical sensations that are never quite deciphered; wishing to utter our admiration, we feel close to the place and it becomes so precious to us that we want to preserve it.

( see also projects/Concrete Creek )