The Sculpture Route at Hatzerim

The story

The Sculpture Route is a route that goes round Kibbutz Hatzerim from the south, about eight kilometers west of Beersheba, and along it and on the hills around it stand thirty-nine sculptures. The project was initiated by the artist and curator Marga Fishtein and her husband Israel, who invited Israeli artists to place in the field works that relate to the environment and to the space. The placing of the sculptures began in 2000 and the curating has continued since; metal sculptures are stolen from the site from time to time, and in their place they are renewed or others are set up. The route is open to pedestrians, to bicycles and to vehicles, and along it are two parking areas of the Jewish National Fund, and it passes close to the jojoba fields. On the margins of the route stand also sites that preceded it. The well of Ali Abu Yahya is one of the two wells of the Abu Yahya clan, a large Bedouin clan that lived in the area until the War of Independence; it was dug in the 1920s, its depth exceeds thirty meters, and its water was pumped by an engine to a nearby storage pool. The first members of Kibbutz Hatzerim bought water from the clan's wells, and around the well there was an orchard some of whose trees stand to this day. On the Radar Hill a small military unit operated in the days of waiting that preceded the Six-Day War, and from that past of it remains of posts and concrete bases have remained. As for the Hatzerim granary, a hewn space with a supporting pillar at its center, opinions differ as to whether it indeed served for the storage of grain.

• Public art