The short film Studio Visit with Naama Agassi is available to watch at the top of the page.
Industrial designer Naama Agassi is known for her innovative creation of conceptual objects, each showcasing a profound understanding of historical, cultural, and social contexts. Unusual materials selected by Agassi play a crucial role in her works, creating unexpected associations across perceived boundaries such as luxury and the commonplace.
One of Agassi’s most provoking collections, the Hairy Jewelry series, delves into gender dynamics. This series challenges the cultural taboos surrounding female body hair. The jewelry is encased in threads representing body hair and is intended to be worn on areas where women traditionally remove hair, such as armpits and eyebrows. In highlighting the decorative features of body hair, Agassi promotes a fresh aesthetic appreciation, breaking away from social norms.
Agassi’s insightful exploration extends beyond gender issues to the fascinating evolution of color symbolism, as seen in her Artificial Regality series. The series centers on the color purple, tracking its journey from a symbol of royalty to a hue of everyday commercial use.
Originally, purple embodied power and royalty due to the meticulous and laborious process of extracting this color from the mucus of marine snails native to the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon (present-day Lebanon). This laborious process yielded the renowned Tyrian purple, a dye so precious that it required up to 250,000 snails to produce a mere ounce. By the third century BC, Tyrian purple, revered more than gold, adorned Mediterranean royalty, from Israelite priests to Roman emperors and Byzantine rulers. So exclusive was this color, laws were enacted to prevent the lower classes from wearing it.
This prestige, however, took a sharp turn in 1856 when English chemist William Henry Perkin inadvertently synthesized a vibrant purple dye. Today, purple straddles the line between the sacred and the commercial. While it is still seen in the vestments of Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops symbolizing faith and piety, it also heavily saturates the mass-market beauty and cosmetics industry, appearing in everything from inexpensive nail varnishes and perfume bottles to fake eyelashes and powder brushes.
Agassi’s objects resonate with the history of purple, mirroring forms such as the Roman imperial helmet, Christian thurible, and modern perfume bottles. Naama Agassi’s “Artificial Regality” series offers an intriguing exploration of the shifting status of colors across time.
In the accompanying video, Agassi expands on how her works serve as platforms for social discourse, providing a unique look at her transformative artistic approach.
The featured video Studio Visit with Naama Agassi is part of the web series Yotsrim by Shachaf Dekel. Yotsrim includes five seasons and 73 episodes. The series won the Best Documentary award at the NYC Web Fest in 2019.
