2019 CO-CURATOR
Eli Kaplan Wildmann is a designer and artistic director living and working in his favorite city, Jerusalem. He is one of the founders of the city’s Starcatcher Theater, where he has been director/designer on five musicals and producer/designer on several others – “Chicago” is currently in production. He directed and designed the premiere production of a new Israeli musical, “Solika,” based on the Moroccan tale. Stateside, he has worked extensively on designing spaces for television, theater and events, with projects for NBC, MTV, ESPN, and on Broadway with designers George Tsypin and Beowulf Boritt, as well as shows off-Broadway. His artistic light-based site specific installations have been presented several times by the annual Jerusalem Light Festival and he has been presented as an artist with other installations and site specific works in the city. Eli curated and designed the exhibit “Art Tunnel” which displayed artwork from Jerusalem based artists within colorful, interactive and photogenic spaces. He served as a designer for the Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab and was a recipient of the Artist Fellowship at the NYU Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, and upon returning to Israel was recognized as an artist of the highest excellence by the Ministry of Culture.
In the past year, he founded the design and publishing studio Unbound Jerusalem. In working on tangible and interactive creations, the studio will explore the meaning of books in this visual and digital age. The first book the studio published was “Unbound: The Recreated Haggadah”. The studio’s second book is “Shabbat Unbound”, a commission from NYC’s Central Synagogue, which was released in January 2018. More commissions and vibrant, tactile projects are in the works as the studio lovingly rethinks the function and relevance of books to a contemporary audience.