The term “paraphernalia” originally referred to items “not included in the dowry” – property belonging solely to the woman, and not to her husband. Nowadays the term is used to describe equipment, devices, and items associated with a certain activity.

In the exhibit, the artist Li Chen seeks to return to the original meaning of the word in order to underline the tension concealed in items especially reserved for a man or a woman: items associated with a man’s daily routine in Judaism or items associated with the feminine day-to-day grooming ritual. All these relate

to private narratives, ritualism, faith, and gender issues such as cultural perceptions of femininity and the feminine ideal, religion, and masculinity. Furthermore, the individual’s weakness may be identified within these items; his/her submission and dependence on social edicts.

 

Li Chen (born in Israel, 1985) graduated from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in the Department of Ceramics & Glass Design in 2013. She currently works and resides in Tel Aviv. Her work techniques include casting into molds, fusing, Pâte de Verre, lost-wax,

cold working and engraving, filing, and cutting glass. Glass has diverse and contradicting qualities: It is dangerous, hard and sealed yet gentle, brittle and transparent. This duality poses technical challenges, requiring extensive and complex work processes and the utilization of numerous tools. Glass’s contradicting qualities allow the artist to display herself and her ideas as well as test the material’s limits as though they were her own.