Jerusalem Design Week connects everyday aesthetics with sports theme 'Match Point'

Jerusalem Design Week returns with a theme that playfully embraces current global sporting events: "Match Point." The artistic directors, Sonja Olitsky and Roni Azgad-Hamburger, have chosen this populist banner to explore the connection between design and the broader cultural significance of competition and winning.

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There are so many issues we relate to, like the connection between typography and sport. And there are more complex subjects, such as why victory is important to us – why we keep on making so much effort to win.

While the English title leans towards tennis, referencing Wimbledon, the original Hebrew name, "Sha’ar Hanitzahon" (The Winning Goal), points to the soccer World Cup. This dual linguistic connection highlights how sports permeate global culture and inspire artistic expression. The festival, running from July 9-16 at Hansen House, promises a free-admission program that delves into various aspects of design.

Azgad-Hamburger notes that the program goes beyond surface-level aesthetics, aiming to "ask searching questions about our reality." Through the lens of competitive sport, the curators intend to examine what it means to maintain morale, the drive to win, the nature of glory, and the symbolic weight of trophies. The event seeks to use the universal appeal of sports as a conduit to understand deeper existential and societal themes.

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Design Week may be a joyful festival of culture and images, but, in fact, it offers an opportunity to ask searching questions about our reality.

The festival's focus on "Match Point" also resonates with contemporary Israeli sentiment, particularly the national morale-boosting slogan "Yahad Nenatze’ah" (Together We Will Win) used during challenging times. This connection underscores the event's intention to engage with the audience on both a cultural and emotional level, using design to reflect and question the human condition.

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There are a lot of works that take a critical approach and, through the prism of competitive sport, try to understand what it means to sustain our morale; why we have to encourage ourselves all the time; what glory is; what victory looks like; and what the significance of the [FIFA World Cup trophy] statuette is.