Four Entered Musrara

The Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Artists’ Greenhouse for Excellence, initiated and led by the Musrara School, ran for four years and offered artists who were selected through an open call the opportunity to develop new works connected to the Jerusalem neighborhood of
Musrara.

We were delighted to accompany the fourth and final cohort of artists: Orit Adar Bechar, Tziki Eisenberg, Rustam Bayramov, and Shay Zilberman. Throughout their creative journey, we discovered countless ways to engage with Musrara. The four works they produced – The
Lost, Treasure Island, A Passing Shadow, and Speech-Grille – each uncovered new layers within the neighborhood’s rich and multifaceted landscape.

The exhibition, presented in the school’s gallery, brings together their works, all of which draw sustenance from histories of displacement, migration, and social struggle; from encounters with the neighborhood’s residents; and from attentive listening to their stories and memories. Some pieces were shaped by materials gathered in the alleys and between the houses.

The four artists worked closely with the local community: longtime residents, visitors, and students alike. Through relationships built on trust, they created compelling bodies of work that remain individually distinct yet, together, form a shared terrain of exploration, connection, and transformation.

The title of the exhibition, Four Entered Musrara, alludes to the well-known Talmudic legend “Four Entered the Orchard,” which tells of four sages who gathered to explore the secrets of mystical knowledge; none of them emerged as they had entered. Stepping into Musrara and encountering its people enabled the artists to join together, learn, and weave their new insights into their respective artistic practices. In doing so, they created new myths, now joining the growing mythology of Musrara.