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Israel's hair-raising history

The Jewish experience involving hair, inundated with symbols from the biblical Samson to the trauma of the Holocaust and including young men's tradition of shaving their heads upon recruitment to the IDF, is now moving toward an Israeli-global trend when it comes to the matter.
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The stated goal of the exhibit "Hair Raising" at the Hachava Gallery in Holon is to examine the use of human hair as a raw material. Among the participants is the Studio Swine initiative — a British-Japanese collaboration that through the film "Hair Highway" describes an astounding socio-economic phenomenon. “The studio staff spent five months in China, which is the biggest importer of hair in the world and the biggest exporter of wood. They looked for a way to end the wasteful and environmentally unfriendly system of import and export, and instead to use local products as raw materials,” says Tamara Wolman, who, with Omri Shapira, curated the exhibit, which includes the work of 11 artists and designers from Israel and around the world.

For the exhibit, Studio Swine created a collection of everyday utilitarian tools: combs, boxes and even mirrors. They look like they’re made of wood, but they’re actually made of hair.

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