Tili Aroch. Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art. New Talents Award Nominee 2026

Name of graduation student: Tili Aroch
Name of guiding teachers: Yael Ouliel and Alma Lion

Nominated by Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art.


Tili Aroch is a research-driven designer with a clear and distinctive visual language, combining critical thinking, material sensitivity, and a strong personal voice. Throughout her final project at the Jewelry Design Department at Shenkar, I had the opportunity to guide her process and witness the development of her unique approach to contemporary jewelry. Tili is a dedicated, curious, and highly motivated designer who works with great depth and precision. Her practice emerges from a deep engagement with the complexity of the place in which we live, expressed through the questions she raises, the research she conducts, and the objects she creates. Her work is deeply connected to both her personal identity and the cultural context from which it emerges.

In her graduation project, Tili explores the relationship between architectural structures and the human body as spaces that define and shape identity. Through research of preserved neighborhoods in Jerusalem, she creates a dialogue between historical layers embedded in architecture and the cultural and personal meanings associated with human hair and skin. The combination of stone, aluminum, leather, and hair emerges from an extensive material investigation and a personal process of discovery, creating a connection between the body, the home, and the traces we carry with us. Through these materials, Tili examines what society chooses to preserve and display while simultaneously concealing and rejecting, creating a tension between attraction and repulsion, visibility and disappearance.

At the core of Tili’s practice is an understanding of jewelry as more than a decorative object; it is an intimate yet public medium through which we communicate identity, memory, and our relationship with the world around us. By translating complex narratives into wearable objects, Tili challenges the boundaries of jewelry as a medium for exploring identity, memory, and cultural narratives. Through her meticulous approach, strong aesthetic language, and ability to transform research into meaningful material expressions, Tili creates work that is both deeply personal and culturally relevant.

/ Yael Ouliel & Alma Lion


Artist statement:

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The project examines the relationship between architectural structures and the human body as spaces that define and shape personal identity. It draws a connection between the historical legacy of occupied neighbourhoods designated for preservation in Jerusalem and the cultural and biological significance of head and body hair. Through the use of stone and aluminium alongside leather and hair, the work creates a material preservation of that which society seeks both to display and to suppress. The result foregrounds a duality of attraction and repulsion, in which adornment becomes a practice of commemorating place, home, and identity


Contact:
Email: tiliaroch@gmail.com
Instagram: @tiliaroch


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