Mind the Heart! Project

Mind the Heart! project started in 2011, in the streets of Tel Aviv, by my partner Roie Avidan and myself.

The idea was born from a simple wish - to find intimacy within our city. We wanted to pull the eyes and hearts of passers-by,

hopefully make them stop for one moment in their ongoing daily race, and make them notice...

Notice what? For starters, themselves and then their surroundings in that specific moment.

This was an open invitation into a state of awareness and contemplation of what surrounds us -

the streets, other people, buildings, roads, sky and of ourselves as part of this pulsating urban web: 

a unique component in a bigger picture.

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So we started walking the streets in this spirit - with hearts and eyes open - trying to absorb the atmosphere of the day, time and place.

The vibe of a downtown area, a peaceful bench in a park or the forgotten corners in a back alley.

From interesting textures of beauty and neglect to different spots craving attention, everything that characterizes a place. 

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We let the eyes wander, looked for details and fragments of the urban composition. Where they lingered, we marked the spot with a frame. 

The marks were small red woolen hearts, framed with shoe-box lids. 
They served as a kind of a real-life check-box. "Pay attention here..." 
We picked the specific yarn heart (each is unique) as well as the color and size of the shoe-box frame

according to each location, and the walls served us as a background. A canvas in the wild.

  

I chose the heart and the use of wool for this project, Roie photographed the streets and the pieces,

committing the passing moments into frames of mind.
As the project evolved to encompass more series, (such as Black Birds, Healing Scars, and Life Lines), 

the works grew bigger and additional symbols appeared. Despite the simplicity of means, and perhaps because of it,

the minimalist - almost fragile - pieces seem to stand out and survive the city chaos.

The fuzziness of wool transmits a warmth and coziness that clashes with the outdoor setting,

the stitches transform the hard walls and cracks into soft tissue,

the letters allow the works to become sentences in an ongoing public conversation.

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Yet the heart stays at the heart of the project, symbolizing a human essence.

True, it isn't perfect. It's crooked, tangled, with dripping ends. But it is the heart we all have: battle-worn, experienced, beating with life.

It dares us to open up, spreading a vibrant, red promise to put itself where it is needed.

Moreover, the heart is the bearer of our principles, emotions, beliefs, hopes realized or vaporized, all that motivates and cripples us. 

It is a generator for mindfulness, within ourselves. A source that might ignite a change, inside and out.

Mind the Heart! wishes to reflect and spread exactly that.