Conglomerate 

I explore natural and industrial processes. In nature, erosion processes wear away hard stones by rolling them back and forth in stream currents. Sometimes conglomerate stones are formed, comprising small stones that have been eroded and compressed back into one rock, bonded together with a binding material. These rocks essentially undergo the creation processes of sedimentary rocks, from which they originated, in a recursive process – erosion and weathering, material settling, and solidification as new material. In Kiryat Hamelakha, a small industrial area south of Tel Aviv, factories engage in zamak casting (a mixture of metals based on zinc) and sand their products after casting in rotating drums called trommels by stirring them with artificial stones, soap, and water. I recreate this recursive process in creating molds of pebbles, which I collect from decorative rockeries throughout the city. Into these molds, I pour different materials: erosion stones from the rotating drums, garden pebbles, construction gravel, and remnants of zinc casting. Occasionally, I also preserve insects in a type of modern amber – epoxy resin. Some of the pebbles I have created undergo additional erosion in the same rotating drums, another step in the recursion.
The work was exhibited as part of the project "Material Intelligence: Exploratory Research", in Artspace Tel Aviv. Curators: Yair Barak, Shira Shoval