70 museums across Israel to be open for free Thursday
International Museum Day allows individuals and families to visit permanent exhibitions and participate in special activities on the theme of 'Museums for a Sustainable Society.'
International Museum Day aims to raise public awareness of the cultural treasures in museums and to bring the public closer to science, art, archaeology, design, history, and culture offered in museum displays and exhibitions.
The museums will be open free for individual visitors and families, displaying permanent exhibitions and holding special activities on Museum Day on the theme of "Museums for a Sustainable Society."
ICOM Israel Director Dorit Wolenitz invites the public to come, enrich, and expand their horizons: "Museums, as cultural leaders in the communities in which they work, have in recent years adopted an increasingly vital role in implementing and imparting ideas and ways of attaining sustainable living.
"Museums are committed to the role of preserving cultural heritage in the face of the challenges constantly being posed by nature and man. Through education and exhibitions on archeology, design, art, ecology, history, and culture we can delve deep into the past and look more intelligently towards the future, enabling us to move towards a sustainable society.
"Museum Day 2015 is a great opportunity to recognize those things that have attained a permanent place in our culture, to see what is new, to view works of art from around the world, to learn more about sustainability in museums that deal with the subject on a daily basis – science and nature museums – and to actively participate in the process of preserving our culture and our heritage."
Special activities on the theme of sustainability will be held throughout Israel on Museum Day: The Bar David Museum for Jewish Art and Judaica in Kibbutz Baram will be demonstrating charcoal, the material and the techniques used by artists from the time of ancient cave drawings to the present day; Haifa City Museum will be conducting tours of its exhibition "Porcelain: The White Gold of Europe" – the European status symbol that was later adopted by Israeli society; The Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem is showing the exhibition "Smiling Machines," featuring 20 working exhibits ‘born’ from parts meant for other purposes, as well as the "Gil-Gula" interactive environment where visitors can build marble runs with tubes, barriers, and sound-producing materials.
The Israel Museum is currently displaying 10 different exhibitions to mark the museum’s 50th birthday, all of which will be open in honor of Museum Day.
At the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, children will be following in the footsteps of Ali Baba, discovering new treasures in the museum’s various exhibitions and participating in craft workshops.
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is showing four different exhibitions: Various video works, sculpture, music and robotics, photographs by Robert Capa, and prints by David Hockney.
At the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, the visitors’ center will be open, as will its Garden of Science with the "Mysteries of Ancient Egypt" exhibition, featuring technological developments of that age – hieroglyphs, papyrus paper, special irrigation techniques, and pyramids. Also in the garden, guided tours will leave to view giant scientific installations, enabling a detailed understanding of the laws of nature surrounding us.
On display at the Holon Puppet Theater Arts Museum are exhibits that provide a vivid example of the way in which fabrics and materials can be recycled and transformed into characters that are well known and loved by children. The museum is currently showing the exhibition, "Hop! Look who’s come to visit!" featuring famous characters from the children’s television channel.
On show at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv is the exhibition "Israeli Glass 2015," demonstrating the techniques and different developments of artistic expression in glass: fusing, slumping, blowing, molding, etc.
Beit Hatfutsot is also open to visitors and will hold afternoon gallery talks on the exhibitions "Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait" and "Dream Weavers."
The complete list of activities and opening hours of the participating museums is published on the website of ICOM Israel and on the websites of museums around Israel.
