Heavens, 2026

metal, table, four chairs


Photo: Avital Bar-Shay


The work stages an encounter between matter and light. Made of heavy metal, the table and chairs bear the Hebrew letters ש-מ-י-ם (sh–m–y–m, heavens) carved into their surfaces. When light falls from above, another dimension is introduced, and they are revealed as letters of light, subtly echoing a familiar idea in Jewish tradition (e.g. Maimonides) whereby matter alone is incomplete and requires the action of intellect or light to move from potentiality into actuality.

The letters, scattered across the chairs, generate multiple Hebrew combinations, each carrying a different meaning: ש-ם (sh–m – one of the names of God, also denoting name and there), י-ם (y–m, sea), מ-י-ם (m–y–m, water). This recalls the idea of Creation through language as described in the ancient Kabbalistic text Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Creation): reality is generated through combinations of letters, and meaning is not fixed but continuously formed through shifting connections and contexts. The single chair bears a single letter, yet only in the encounter between one person and another, between object and object, do word and meaning emerge.

The light casting the word שמים onto the table emphasises the tension between upper and lower: the firmament is not merely a physical location, but a manifestation of spiritual presence revealed within earthly reality. In this sense, the work proposes a philosophical reading, suggesting that truth resides not only in the fixed structure of things, but also in their interaction—in moments of illumination where what is separated momentarily converges into a unified meaning.