The vision for Ashush Gallery was born in 2019 during an artist residency in Tzukim, in the Arava Desert. I felt a strong personal calling to return to the desert and create from within it. A meaningful conversation with community leader Nehama Charach became the starting point for imagining how Tzukim could become a living cultural space where contemporary art could thrive.
I developed an initial proposal and shared it with local leadership, including Eyal Shirai, Gary Vidor, and the Central Arava Development Committee. At first, it remained only an idea. I soon understood that for the project to succeed, I needed to be physically present. I closed my private practice in Canada, took leave from my work at the Sexual Assault Centre of Niagara, rented out my home, packed two suitcases, and moved alone to Tzukim for ten months during the height of COVID-19.
Very quickly, I realized that the true work was not only curatorial, but human. The artists of Tzukim were talented, independent, and deeply invested in their own practices. Before building a gallery, I had to build trust. I met personally with each artist, visited studios, listened to concerns, and worked to create a shared vision where every artist would feel their work had dignity, visibility, and equal respect.
Together with Eyal Shirai, and through growing trust and collaboration, we transformed the abandoned dining hall of the former Nahal outpost—empty for decades—into a professional exhibition space.
We decided that the first exhibition should honor the local artists themselves. Painters, sculptors, ceramicists, and makers were given a professional and respectful platform, presented side by side as one artistic community. This first exhibition became an act of recognition as much as curation.
The project was made possible by the remarkable talents of the community: lighting expert Reuven Gilboa, builder and artist Andre Gunter, community leader Nehama Charach, Hagar Hogen, who coordinated the process and established the café, and Tamar Blokio, who co-curated the first exhibition with me.
Through persistence, dialogue, trust-building, and collective work, Ashush Gallery was born—a symbol of local initiative, contemporary art in the desert, and the power of community to transform vision into reality.