'Jong Talent 2008' Rietveld Academy

I believe an art work can be a micro-cosmos - reflecting the world and creating a new one. I see it as a form of communication that provides us with safe grounds to question, explore and understand our selves and the society we live in; that is valid for spectators as well as for makers. I see art as a platform to debate on and learn with, a chance to evoke new life outside the routine of life.

In my work I mainly intermingle technology, sound and movement. I am intrigued by an abstract idea and during the creative process searching for the suitable way to execute it. Untill now, I worked on sculptures, interactive sound installations, performances, textile, moving image, poetry, kinetic art and jewellery, while my fascination is to dissolve the boundaries between these art forms.

Maarten de Reus, Chairman of committee wrote;

With this letter I reflect on the work Yehudith Mizrahi made for her graduation show at the Rietveld Academy in the summer of 2008.

Yehudit’s project is exactly in the middle of three worlds: Music, Dance and Sculpture. Music and Dance were her background when she started studying at the Rietveld academy, Sculpture became her ambition. Her end-exam piece is a perfect merger of the three. One could say that Music is the animation of materials: objects and things start to reverberate and swing; from strings to reeds, from the skin of a drum to a vocal chord. Dance is the animation of the body, the choreography beyond the practical chores of instrumental movements. The end exam installation of Yehudit is a room full of animated objects, ordinary and well knows objects, but they are alive, they move, open and close, turn, rattle, breathe, whistle, sigh and heave. It is interactive too, the simple choreography of a visitor moving around this room makes the various objects react and come alive. With this, the work touches on the very first functions of sculpture; that of the fetish, the totem, the animation of inanimate, the mediation between dead things and living things. In the hands of Yehudit sculptures become musical instruments, music becomes a choreography of furniture, and an ordinary room becomes a magical place...

Maarten de Reus
Chairman of committee
teacher Audio Visual Department
Gerrit Rietveld Academy
Amsterdam, the Netherlands