Street Photography Workshop

“No photographer has been quite as involved in the Israeli experience as Alex Levac has – photographing, as he does, with intellectual freedom and empathy, creating his transient homages to Israeli street scenes with poetic scrutiny”
The Decision of the Judges in Awarding the Israel Prize of 2005 to Alex Levac.

These days, almost everyone can take photos with their cellphones or pocket cameras and almost no-one needs equipment or professional skills in order to capture a moment, a story or a relationship between people, space and time.

In the photography workshop, Niro will speak about some of the works of Alex Levac, an Israeli photographer who documents Israeli society via direct, unstaged photographs, and we will get tips and advice about quick and successful photography. After that, participants will go out into the street with the task of looking for street stories and documenting the relationships between the people in the street, and between them and their environment. In the second part of the workshop, we will analyze the photographs – and the stories behind them, and the latent messages about Israeli society and daily current affairs that arise from them.

The workshop is suitable for the consolidation of teams, and for groups from Israel and around the world.

Length of Workshop: Two and a half hours.

Israeli Portrait Workshop

A portrait is a drawing, photograph or other artistic representation of a person – its purpose is to represent the general appearance of the person and, at times, to add an artistic insight into the person’s personality.

In this workshop, we will be introduced to a variety of Israeli artists whose portraits display identity characteristics of persons, vistas and society in Israel using a variety of techniques and artistic styles, which allows us to glimpse the essence of Israel from the personal point of view of each artist. The connection points between these artists reveal common images which take us into deeper levels of the collective consciousness, via mythological, historical and cultural icons.

We will get tips and tools for releasing our creativity and freedom of imagination which will help us to imagine the portrait creation process ourselves. Each participant will draw a self portrait, using a combination of artistic materials provided in the workshop, together with his own personal effects, in order to come up with a direct and personal characterization. The second exercise will be to characterize a portrait of the State of Israel. It is interesting to see where the participants, with the instructor’s assistance, take the analysis of the objects chosen in the context of their concept of the reality and current affairs that surround them.

The workshop is suitable for the consolidation of teams, and for groups from Israel and around the world.

Length of Workshop: One hour.

Graffiti Workshop

The word graffiti shares its origins with those of the word “graph”, i.e. writing and expression in words and sentences, on walls, which sometimes combine with drawings and color, the only requirement being that they contain some form of text – graffiti is often used as a means of expressing an opinion and as a tool of political or social protest.

In the graffiti workshop, we will learn to understand the language, tools and various styles of street art which have developed thanks to advanced technology, and the works and the artists in the international community. We shall receive instruction and tips as to how to get the best out of the design task.

Each participant will draw a sketch for a work of graffiti, using artistic materials provided in the workshop. We shall examine what components of their personal and collective identity participants choose to represent in their works.

In the final portion of the workshop, we will conduct an open discussion about the creative process and with the assistance of instruction, we shall touch the various levels of the essence of what is Israeli, as well as local current affairs.

The workshop is suitable for the consolidation of groups, and particularly for overseas groups visiting Israel as part of educational programs.

Length of Workshop: One hour.
(Depending on the number of participants)