Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction: Narratives into Objects, Objects into Narratives
- 1 The Qualities of Modelscapes
- 2 Models and Modern Perceptions of Nationalism
- 3 The Second Temple Model
- 4 Mini Israel
- 5 The Valley of the Communities
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction: Narratives into Objects, Objects into Narratives
- 1 The Qualities of Modelscapes
- 2 Models and Modern Perceptions of Nationalism
- 3 The Second Temple Model
- 4 Mini Israel
- 5 The Valley of the Communities
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘See it all – small’
– The first slogan of the Mini Israel theme parkThis slogan appeared on the early brochures of the Mini Israel theme park as well as on its website, promising the visitors an opportunity to see it ‘all’ in miniature. As in Chapter 3, the analysis of this modelscape answers the main theoretical questions: What does ‘all’ mean in this context? How does this modelscape represent Israeli national identity? How does it signify the nationalization of the territory?
The Mini Israel theme park is a site of entertainment and leisure, and this framing determined the methodological decision to focus in its analysis on the ways in which the people involved in its creation and management have identified the visitors’ expectations, and how they responded to them. As will be shown in this chapter, in the decade between this modelscape's inception and its opening, the political climate in Israel has changed significantly. These changes have had significant effects on the park's design, both financially and conceptually. Interviews with the people involved in the design, updating, management and marketing of the park through the years reveal how the shifts in target population from tourists to local visitors has affected the contents and policies of the park.
I also investigate in this chapter a counter-exhibition that was initiated following the opening of Mini Israel theme park. The exhibition, also entitled ‘Mini Israel’, was held at the Israel Museum from March to August 2006. It displayed 70 models made by 45 artists, and criticised the theme park's utopic view of Israel, its perfect geometric layout and homogenous miniature scale models of carefully chosen buildings. For its analysis I interviewed the curator of the exhibition, artist Larry Abramson, who also exhibited his own video-art showing the dismantling of the Second Temple Model, discussed in the previous chapter.
Both Mini Israel theme park and the exhibition made use of individual miniature models in order to create a meaningful entirety, framing two different views of ‘Israeliness’. Each provided the visitor with a collection of signs and markers of exterior objects which are worth further investigation. Rather than modelling the physical geography of Israel, both use spatial solutions to suit their ideological standpoints.
- Type
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- Information
- Modelscapes of NationalismCollective Memories and Future Visions, pp. 121 - 160Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017