“An intergenerational dialogue”

Golomb Elementary School, Neve Eliezer, south east of Tel-Aviv.
Elderly Centre in Neve Eliezer managed by the municipality of Tel-Aviv.
Artists : Ophira Avissar (visual artist); Shmoulik Matalon (actor)
The main issue of this workshop is to investigate the possibilities of common creation and interaction between two categories of persons in the boundaries of the society, living close to each other in the same neighbourhood.
The project brings together school children from an elementary school and retired people from an elderly centre nearby.

The Golomb school gathers children from various quarters in the south of Tel-Aviv. The chose group is composed of 12 6th grade children with obsessive compulsive disorder, who are considered in « school failure ». The group is correlated with 6 aged persons from the Neve ELiezer elderly centre located in the same neighbourhood.
The idea of merging is expressed in more than one way: it is a merging of artistic techniques, of different kinds of people and also between two artistic disciplines.
The children and their aged guests are creating together chains of art works. We are now heading towards our ninth meeting (out of ten) and we are moved to see the development of friendship and mutual understanding, as well as learning and listening together, and even… recognizing sentiments of pleasure and pride in and out of their work.

Once the workshop is over, after the last meeting, we will organize an exhibition of the works at the elementary school, to which the aged people will be invited to bring members of their families and friends to visit.
For us, artists, this is an exciting encounter and a wonderful way of creating “chains” in some small alienated society of our time…