Faculty & staff

Dr. Yael Eylat Van-Essen is a curator and a researcher specializing in the interface between art, design, science and technology. She is also specializing museology and curatorial theory, focusing on the influence of new technology on the concept of the museum. 

She graduated from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, received her MA and PhD from Tel-Aviv University, and a post-doc from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is a senior lecturer at the design faculty of the Holon Institute of Technology, and also lectures at the Master’s Interdisciplinary program in the Art faculty at Tel Aviv University.

She took part as a curator in many exhibitions in Israel and abroad, among them: Life-Object, Merging Biology and Architecture, the Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Biennale for Architecture in 2016;  NOT YET, ALREADY Architecture and Animation, HIT Research Gallery (2014);  I(IL) Machine Exhibition, Ars Electronica Festival 2013, The Cartography of the Unseen, HIT Research Gallery (2013). 

Her last book Rethinking the Museum was published in Israel in 2016. She edited the book LifeObject, published for the Israeli Pavilion in Venice, and edited the first anthology published in the Hebrew language on Digital Culture (2002). She has founded and directed for many years the Digital Media department in Camera Obscura school of Art and founded and was the academic director of the International Curatorial Program in Tel Aviv.
 

B.F.A., Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, 1985
M.A., Tel-Aviv University, 2004
PhD, Tel-Aviv University, Art Faculty, 2011
Post-Doc, Hebrew University Jerusalem, 2015

• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.), Digital Culture, Virtuality, Society and Information, Bnei Brak: Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad Press, 2002.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.), LifeObject: Merging Architecture and Biology, Montreal: Sternthal Books, 2016.    
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, Rethinking the Museum, Bnei Brak: Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad Press, 2016.

• Eylat Van Essen, Yael & Levi D.K. (eds.), Boaz Tal -Homage, HIT Research Gallery, Exhibition Catalog , Holon: HIT Research Gallery, 2012.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael & Levi, D.K. (eds.), Syrian People Know Their Way, HIT Research Gallery, Design Faculty in collaboration with Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv: Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, 2013. 
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael & Levi D.K. (eds.), The Cartography of the Unseen,  HIT Research Gallery,  Exhibition Catalog , Holon: HIT Gallery, 2013.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.) Fragmented Spaces, Spliced Identities, Exhibition Catalog, Raanana: Open University Press, 2017.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.), Neo Bartalism, Exhibition Catalog, Tel-Aviv, 2017.

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• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “Digital Culture - Introduction,” in Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.), Digital Culture, Virtuality, Society and Information, Bnei Brak: Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad Press, 2002. 25-67.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “Institutional Critique and the City Museum of Tel-Aviv,” in Richter Dorothee (ed.) Institution as Medium. Curating as Institutional Critique? On-Curating, Issue 13, Part 2, Zurich: 2012. 28-31. 
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “Boaz Tal – Homage,” in Eylat Van Essen, Yael & Levi D.K. (eds.), Boaz Tal -Homage,  HIT Research Gallery, Exhibition Catalog , Holon: HIT Gallery, 2012. 17-19.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “Photography and the New Mechanisms of Visuality,” in Haikin Naama (ed.), Lot's Wife - Exhibition Catalog, Tel Hai: The Open Museum of Photography Tel-Hai, 2013. 116-128.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, ” Syrian People Know Their Way, in Eylat van Essen, & Levi D.K. (eds.), Syrian People Know Their Way, HIT Research Gallery, Design Faculty in collaboration with Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies, Tel-Aviv: Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, 2013. 19-34.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “The Cartography of the Unseen,” in Eylat Van Essen, Yael & Levi D.K. (eds.), The Cartography of the Unseen,  HIT Research Gallery,  Exhibition Catalog , Holon: HIT Gallery, 2013. 11-46.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “The Image as a Networked Interface: The Textualization of the Photographic Image,” in Daniel Rubinstein, Johnny Golding Andy Fisher, (eds.) On the Verge of Photography, Birmingham; Birmingham University Press, 2013. 259-283.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael,” IL(L) Macine,” in Dalya Yafa Markovich (ed.), Bezalel, Journal of Visual and Material Culture, Vol.1. Beyond the Object, 2014 http://journal.bezalel.ac.il/he/article/331 
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “LifeObject,” in Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.), LifeObject: Merging Architecture and Biology, Montreal: Sternthal Books, 2016. 7-31
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “Fragmented Spaces, Spliced Identities,” in  Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.) Fragmented Spaces, Spliced Identities, Exhibition Catalog, Raanana: Open University Press, 2017. 9-16.
• Eylat Van Essen, Yael, “Neo Bartalism,” in Eylat Van Essen, Yael, (ed.), Neo Bartalism, Exhibition Catalog, Tel-Aviv, 2017.  12-39
• Eylat Van-Essen, Yael, “Can we talk about Cartography without Borders? in Abeliovich Ruthie and Edwin Seroussi (Eds.) Borderlines: Essays on artistic and conceptual practices of mapping places. De Gruyter Press, 2019. 117-133.

• Institution as Medium, Curating as Institutional Critique Symposium, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, invited lecture, lecture title: Institutional critique in the city museum of Tel-Aviv, 2010.
• The Viewer as a Sinner Conference, Tel-Aviv University, Faculty of Art, Tel-Aviv, lecture title: The viewer as a sinner – on the gaze in the museum,  2011.
• Art in the Digital Age Conference, Haifa University, Faculty of Art, Haifa, Israel, lecture title: The curator and the new vision mechanisms in the museum,  2011.
• The Open Museum of Photography, Tel-Hai, Israel, lecture title: From a photographic image to a living photograph, 2011.
• Duets Seminar, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Faculty of Art, invited lecture,  lecture title: Museums and technology: The museum as a medium, 2012.
• Beyond Representation; Photography, Humans and Computers Conference, South Bank University, London, UK, lecture title: The image as a networked database, 2012
• The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), Tel-Aviv, Israel, invited lecture, lecture title: New narrative models in art, 2012
• Photography in a Changing Culture Conference, Hadassah College, Jerusalem, Israel, lecture title: “The big picture and the dismantled image – The textualization of the image, invited Lecture, 2013
• On the Verge of Photography: Imaging, Mobile Art, Humans & Computers Conference, Centre for Fine Art Research, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK, lecture title: Photography and the new vision mechanisms, 2013        
• Gogol Art Festival, Kiev, Ukraine, invited lecture, lecture Title: New media art in Israel, 2014.
• Digital Media and the Public Sphere,  Conference, Tel-Aviv University, school for Architecture, invited lecture, lecture title: Rethinking the museum and the public sphere – Museums in the Digital Era,  2015.
• i-CORE conference, Yad-Hashmona, Israel, lecture title: Between a national space to a dismantled space – The renewal processes of Israel Museum and Tel-Aviv Museum,  2015.    
• Museum Masterskaya Anikushina, St. Petersburg, Russia, invited lecture, lecture title: The Israel pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale: Merging biology and architecture, 2016.
• New Media and Visual Art Conference, The Open University in Raanana, Israel, invited lecture, lecture title: Between the real and the virtual: rethinking the museum, 2016
• Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Department of Architecture, Israel, invited lecture, lecture title: Between the real and the virtual: The public space in the digital era, 2016
• Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Department of Computer Science, Israel, invited lecture, lecture title: Singing diagonally, 2017.
• Shenkar Academy of Art & Design, Art Department, Israel, invited lecture, lecture title: From the picture”s album to the Big-Picture, 2017    
• Perspectives in Integrated Design International Conference, HIT, Holon Institute of Technology, Lecture title: HIT Research Gallery, 2017
• Technarte Bilbao Conference, Bilbao, Spain lecture title: Living architecture, 2017.    
• Re:Trace Media Art Histories Conference, Vienna, Austria, lecture title: From the digital to the post-digital – the photographic image, 2017.
• Herzelia Museum, Israel, Museum Seminar, lecture title: Rethinking the Museum, 2018.
• IDC (Indian Design Center), IIT Mumbai, India, invited lecture, lecture title: Architecture and living systems: LifeObject: Merging biology and architecture, The Israeli pavilion, Venice Biennale for Architecture, 2018.
• IDC (Indian Design Center), IIT Mumbai, India, invited lecture, lecture title: New perspectives in curating, 2018
• Prince of Wales Museum Museum, Mumbai, India, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj  Vastu Sangrahalaya, invited lecture, lecture title: Rethinking the museum in the digital era, on AI and museums, 2018    
• NID- National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, India. Invited lecture, lecture title: Exhibitions as narrative spaces, 2018. 
• The Politics of the Machine Conference, EVA18 conference, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark, lecture title:  Optimizing Creativity, 2018.
• Global Issues in Regional context Conference, KISD- Koln, International School of Design, Germany, invited lecture, lecture title: Between the global and the local: design education in the gallery space, 2018.
• DOX - Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, Invited Lecture: Yael Eylat Van-Essen, Curatorial Works, 2018.
• T'wice 2018, Taiwan Innovative Circular Economy, International Forum, National Cheng Kung University, C-Hub, Tainan, Keynote lecture:  From New Materials to New Structures: Biology and Architecture, 2018.
• Urban Futures II, TCCLab Taipei. Invited Lecture: Merging Biology with Architecture: Collaborative models, 2018.
• Museum in the Digital Age Conference, Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Rethinking the Museum – New Hybrid, 2019.
• Rethinking the Collection Conference, Ein-Harod Museum, Invited Lecture: Curatorial Practices and the Digital Archive, 2019.

• Dan Zakheim Foundation for Interdisciplinary Art, Jury, 1999.
• Werkleitz Award, EMAF-European Media Festival, Osnabroek, Germany, Jury, 2003
• Short Film Competition -In the Palace – International Film Festival, Bulgaria, Jury, 2004 
• In-between program , In the Palace – International Film Festival, Bulgaria, Jury, 2009.
   

• 2003- EMAF-European Media Festival, Osnabroek, Germany
  Judge Werkleitz Prize Award
  
• 2004- In the Palace – International Film Festival, Bulgaria – short film competition
  
• 2009- In the Palace – International Film Festival, Bulgaria, In-between program
  

• Artistic Director of Big Small People Project, an International Animation Project The project was funded by UNESCO Israel in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Educational TV. 2004-2006
• Initiator and Editor of DAF – Digital Art Forum: a series of lectures on digital art by scholars and artists working in this field.Art Faculty, Tel-Aviv University. 2005-2007. 
• Curator of a series of over 70 lectures of artists, curators and theoreticians at the CCA-Center for Contemporary Art in Tel-Aviv, in collaboration with the International Curatorial Program in Kalisher. 
• 2005-2011Commissioned by Tel-Aviv Municipality and the Tel-Aviv Foundation, Israel. A member in the curatorial team for the design of a new museum for the city of Tel-Aviv for its 100th Anniversary. 
   

• Scholarship for excellent for doctoral students, Tel-Aviv University, 2004-2009 
• Netvision Institute for Internet Research, Tel-Aviv University, 2005
• Rothschild Cesaria Communication School, Tel-Aviv University, 2008
• Israel National Lottery, grant for research in Israeli Visual Culture, 2013
• i-CORE (Israeli Centers of Research Excellence), The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2014-2015.
• HIT – Excellence in creative research – 2015-2017
   

• Boaz Tal – Homage, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2012
• Syrian People Know Their Way, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2013
• One Animation per Day, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2013
• IL(L) Machine, Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria, 2013
• Syria, a Silent Scream, (co-curator), Mana Contemporary Art, New-Jersey, USA, 2013    
• The Cartography of the Unseen, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2013
• File:/Home, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2014
• Not yet, Already, Architecture and Animation, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2014
• Art, Science and Technology – An Israeli Perspective, Kiev, Ukraine, 2014
• Bio-Design, Hybrid Fabrications, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2014
• The New Craft, HIT Research Gallery, HIT, Holon, Israel, 2015
• LifeObject: Merging Architecture and Biology, Israel Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Italy. (Curator in a curatorial team: architects: Bnaya Baur, Arielle Blonder, Noy Lazarovich, scientist: Dr. Ido Bachelet.), 2016
• Phantoms: Journey Following the Relics of Dictatorships, Dana Arieli’s exhibition, Artists House, Tel-Aviv, 2016
• Art, Science and Technology – An Israeli Perspective (version 2), Erarta Museum of Modern Art, St. Petersburg, 2016
• Fragmented Spaces, Spliced Identities, Open University Gallery, Raanana, 2017
• Neo Bartalism, Hansen Center for Design, Media and Technology, 2017
• (id)ea.code++ Algorithmic Objects, HIT Research Gallery, 2017
• LifeObject, The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, 2018