Portfolio
My name is Sapir Ashkenazi and I am an artist. For as long as I can remember I’ve indulged in the creative arts. I style and design costumes and sets professionally. In 2020 I graduated from Tel Aviv University’s honor roll program with an MFA in Design for Stage, Film and TV. I’ve worked in a variety of different artistic fields, including designing costumes and sets, acting, modelling, and plastic arts. I try to seize every opportunity to create and challenge myself in new and foreign fields. Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to create something together.
Antidaephobia
Antidaephobia – Short Film, 2020, part of Tel Aviv Cinematheque’s film festival ImproAction 11. Writer: Adi Salhov, Director: Alon Newman, Camera Work: Ronen Goldshtein and Tamir Basel-Tana, Set and Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Editing: Tal Keller, Color and VFX: Raf Krimson, Actors: Adi Salhov, Ilan Ben-Ovadia, Natalie Diamant, Daniel Zirlin.
Thalma Bine
Thalma Bine – Short film, 2019. Taking place in Tel Aviv in the 60’s, this short film tells the story of gifted pianist Thalma Bine as she struggles to escape her musician father’s shadow. Thalma fails time after time despite her perseverance and persistence. The path to success is rife with struggles both mental and physical, but Thalma does not throw in the towel. The movie was shown in Tel Aviv Cinematheque as part of a student film festival. Writer and Director: Reut Baral, Producer: Melanie Lea Bismuth, Camera Work: Mano Paros, Lighting: Yonatan Arbel, Set and Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Editing: Sivan Shuster, Actors: Anna Senger, Shalom Kenan, Sound: Daniel Shouali.
Marionette
Marionette – Short film, 2018. Took part in a student film festival in Tel Aviv Cinematheque. Writer and Director: Yuval Winer, Producer: Noa Hayet, Camera Work: Ben Levy, Set and Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Editing: Idan Levi, Actors: Elisheva Weil, Alice Dor Cohen, Benny Hozmi.
Under the Doctor
Under the Doctor – Play, June 2021. High-octane comedy which takes place in 20th century France, revolving around a young doctor torn between his love for his wife and a torrid affair. Thanks to an ambitious and greedy servant he manages a cover-up, but things don’t work out quite the way he expected. Play: Peter Tilbury, Director: Roni Mendelson, Set and Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Music: Guy Mendelson, Lighting: Dan Glazer, Actors: the students of “HaDerech” – Daniel Ofer, Noam Bud, Bonnie Cohen, Moriya Dafna, Sarig Mizrahi, Gadi Asraf, Adi Zadok, Edden Yosef, Shahar Reches, Dor Revach, Ron Rapaport, Yarin Sharon, Rona Toledano, Meitar Dray, Itamar Bitan, Adi Hikri.
Pangs of the Messiah
Pangs of the Messiah – Play, April 2021. ‘Pangs of the Messiah’ tells the story of a rabbi’s family in a settlement in Samaria on the eve of a peace agreement between Israel and the PLO. The upcoming evacuation causes great tension and reveals great ideological rifts tearing the family apart.
For the set, I was interested in creating an oppressive atmosphere in a spacious-yet-crowded house. I held in my mind an image of a ticking time bomb or a pressure cooker, which led to the red and brown colors dominating the stage. I chose a dark woody brown for the gravity it lends the set along with an impression of flammability, as though the house could burst into flames at any moment. The house’s rooms are semi open and some dividers are almost transparent in order to instill a feeling that things are happening out of view, in the imaginary world behind the stage and in the innermost chambers of the abode. Play: Motti Lerner, Director: Josh Sagie, Set and Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Music: Rafi Perah, Lighting: Dan Glazer, Actors: Third Year students at Impro – Yonatan Ya’akov, Bar HaLevi, Shahar Mor Haim, Maya Deutch, Miriam Gotsdiner, Tamar Reilinger, Nimrod Doron, Ella Finkel.
Cash on Delivery
Cash on Delivery – Play, June 2020. Arik has been fired from his job at the Electric Corporation. Unable to tell his wife the truth, he comes up with sophisticated schemes to get money from Social Security. As the ongoing fraud grows in scopes and representatives of Social Security arrive to survey his situation, Arik finds himself firing up his creativity and imagination to explain how he’s been making money without working… a contemporary Israeli adaptation of Michael Cooney’s Cash on Delivery.
Play: Michal Cooney, Director: Roni Mendelson, Translation: Dana Peleg, Set and Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Music: Guy Mendelson and Yoav Dolev, Lighting: Dan Glazer, AD: Lior Shemesh, Actors: Third Year students at Impro – Hagar Malka, Gal Ginossar, Ilan Ben Ovadia, Daniel Tzirlin, Adi Salhov, Amit Nehushtan, Yohai Iluz, Ella Finkel, Ann Avital
Melancholy Play
Melancholy Play – Play, December 2019. Surrealist play by Sarah Ruhl. Director: Keren Edrei, Set Design: Adva Cohen Spiegel, Costume Design: Sapir Ashkenazi, Lighting: Adi Milo, Editing: Ziv Shaham, Music: Kobe Shmuely, Actors: menver yosef, Abigail Zamir, Hadas Miron, Daniel Hale, Atalah Tanous. The play centers around Tilly, a melancholic bank teller, with whom everyone seems to fall in love; Lorenzo the psychiatrist, Frank the tailor, Frances the hairdresser and Joan the nurse are all head over heels for her melancholy. One day, suddenly and unexpectedly – Tilly becomes happy. This reversal throws the world off its balance. In a strange and mysterious turn, others who experience melancholy become almonds. Almonds! What awaits Tilly and the rest?
מה אישה רוצה?
Budapest
Budapest – Ivy Green – Music video, November 2021. Chen Danielle (stage name Ivy Green) is a singer and creator “Bubapest” is here first single, And I am honored to be part of it. Director & Editor – Vadim Mechona, Drone Pilot – Yishay Beit-Halachmi, Hair & make up – Inbal Shumer, Styling – Sapir Ashkenazi, Dancer – Alon “Asado” Hoffman, Actors – Miriam Mimi Gotsdiner, Ilan Ben Ovadia.
JOB
Job – Jonathan Mizrachi – Music video, September 2020. Yonatan Mizrahi’s song explores the conflicts of his adolescence. The video tells the story of Job as he fights demons after God, it seems, has abandoned him. Yonatan expresses his own struggle with religion through the biblical story of Job. Director: Orel Even Chen, Camera: Ben Levy, Costume Designer: Sapir Ashkenazi, Art: Yuval Halevy. An article about the music video was published in Urbanista magazine.
Magic kass
Magic Kass – March 2021. Web series (promotional material) on YouTube. Celebs (Michal Ben David, Reef Grinfeld, Noga Gefen, Mai Prianti, Yarden Wiesel, Eyal Nagar, Maor Levi, Or’el Zabari, Idan Telem, Miriam Gdial among others) participate in missions inspired by an amusement park to be opened in Ma’ale Adumim. I dressed the production, creating around 120 outfits for the various missions and episodes.
I love you I, love you
Performance Art – “I love you, I love you” – A piece I created in 2020 as part of an open stage at Tel Aviv University. I built and painted the “chalkboard” myself. This performance mimics one of the mechanisms of OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder). OCD comes in many forms, usually with intrusive thoughts. These thoughts are uncontrollable and unavoidable, thus they become disruptive and oppressive. At times these can be nice or even exciting thoughts but the way they take form in the mind, compulsively and without end, makes them absolutely intolerable. By writing the words “I love you” over and over again I present the way in which such a thought becomes obsessive, going from a compulsive thought to a compulsive impulse or action. Writing with chalk on a chalkboard relates to the field of education, to control and punishment which both have a strong relationship with OCD. OCD’s roots are in many factors, some of which are genetic (hence the outfit I’m wearing, which belonged to my mother when she was my age). Above all the disorder carries a stigma associated with cleanliness and organization. In this performance I express my personal experience with the disorder and I hope to give viewers a new perspective on it.
The Weight of a Weight
Performance Art – “The Weight of a Weight” – A piece I did on 10.10.2018, in honor of World Mental Health Day. My goal in this performance was to explore a topic considered by many sensitive, secretive, intimate. I chose to share my weight with the world, something I usually kept even from myself. Through this act of sharing I create a space of intimacy and of suspense, of a revelation of secrets. This suspense helps explore the meaning we assign to our weight. Several questions are raised – does their weight say something about a person? Are two people whose weight is identical similar in other ways? Can we really assess how someone looks, thinks or talks because of their weight? Why is this such a sensitive, intimate topic? Why, for example, do we not feel similarly about the number of eyelashes we each have? Does the revelation of the “secret” of our weight bring us closer together? Is weight a reliable measurement, given it is constantly changing throughout the day, depending on eating habits, hydration, sweating and perspiration and resting?