I Care a Lot: a portable discussion

I Care A Lot is an online-and a traveling exhibition

The project aim is to raise discussion about current issues in the Middle East through an international art exhibition in which jewelry is the chosen media. The project began with an open call for a traveling and an online exhibition. The works were selected independently by five international jury members - experts in their fields of studies and practice:

Dr. Otto von Busch (Sweden) - Fashion Activist
Love Jonsson (Sweden) - Craft Critic
Prof'. Verd Kaminski (Israel) - Jewelry Artist
Shari Pierce (USA, Germany) - Jewelry Artist
Dr. Nada Shabout (USA,Qatar) - Art Historian

The jury chose 42 pieces for the exhibition out of 252 submitted works, by 195 applicants. Entries from over 30 countries have been received and artists' pieces from 22 countries are exhibited in the final collection. I Care A Lot includes a website and facebook page with project updates, Middle East related art works and news on relevant current political events. By now 449 people from all around the world are 'I Care A Lot' friends and they can share their thoughts and concerns on the Middle East amongst themselves and with the public.

Why jewelry?
Jewelry is an intimate art medium within the private and the public space which offers a personal relationship and an encounter between the wearer ,the viewer audience and the actual jewelry. It is an invitation to start a conversation and it can make a meeting possible. The body is a portable show case and the wearer chooses what and how to exhibit on him/her. Jewelry express the wearer character and sense of humor, it acts as an extension to the wearer personality, indicating his/her group of belonging, it is asking questions or claiming its opinion about the reality in which we live in, about our society, our surrounding and ourselves.

Cause We Care.
The region's history and present are seeded with continuous violent national, ethnic and other conflicts. In many aspects the Middle East is considered to be one of the most sensitive and unstable regions in the world; strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously. It is located in the center of the international politics agenda. Its historical role, its huge reserves of crud oil and its significance for the three largest monotheist religions are usually taken as reasons for the world's ardent interest in the region. But the attitude towards the Middle East has pasted the point of a keen interest in world affairs. By now it seems clear that the Middle East is perceived, especially by consumers of Western media, as the place where world dramas converge, or - more accurately - collide. It is almost the opposite of the Bermuda Triangle: everything that happens there pops up on our radars.

What is the Middle East? What is the source of our attraction to it? Is it just that it happens to be the most eventful place on earth? What is the nature of our commitment to effecting the future of the region? Do we really care about what goes on there? Do we really care about what goes on anywhere that is elsewhere? Do we care about the Middle East in a way similar to the way we care about how people look at us? Do we care about it the way we care about what people see in us?