The Walled City
Jordana Dauber, Avner Quigley,
Ariel Greenberg

This artwork depicts a stone wall protecting a city with a drawbridge that, when lowered, reveals a golem standing in the doorway. In Jewish legends, the golem is a creature of the Earth, made with truth, and brought to life with Hebrew incantations and chantings. It becomes a protector and a companion of the Jewish community that it was brought to life in. The golem is rough, uncut, and simple, and its job is to keep the peace and protect the Jewish people.

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To make the piece, we first started by laser cutting a base. The base was made of wood, and consisted of two pieces - the bottom layer, and the outline of the moat. We placed two laser-cut pieces of rectangular wood in the center of the moat, and covered the inside of the moat with transparent aqua-colored glue to represent water. Then we placed the laser-cut walls of the city in the center of the platform. The drawbridge was 3d printed, and is held up by gold chains. The golem was made of clay, and had the word “אמת” on its chest. Inside of the wall the city buildings are made of wood.

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This piece is inspired by peace and truth. The golem was how we represented these ideas, as the golem is a symbol of peace and protection, and was made with truth. The quote we chose was כִּ֤י יצְִצְּנ֨נֵיִ ׀ בְּסֻכּהֹ֮ בְּי֢בֿם רָ֫עָ֥ה י֭סְַוִֹרֵניִ בְּסֵ֣תֶר אׇהֳל֑בֿ בְּ֝צ֗וּר ירְבֿמְמֵֽניִ׃ (psalms 27) in Hebrew, and “He will shelter me in His pavilion on an evil day, grant me the protection of His tent, raise me high upon a rock” in English. We chose this quote because this is exactly what the golem symbolizes and is supposed to do.

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In making this artwork, we learned to think creatively and problem solve whenever we ran into an obstacle. The way we imagined the piece would look shifted over the time we worked on the project, and the final work was even better than we could have imagined.