Women’s Stories – Dr. Ravid Rovner

We’ve known Ravid for years — since our time together at the Faculty of Design at HIT in Holon, where she taught alongside Tal, and some of us were lucky enough to be her students.
Even back then, it was clear she was one of those people you just want to keep listening to — someone whose words stay with you.
Ravid is a researcher, theorist, and digital nomad. Whenever we get the chance, we find ourselves quoting her words from her beautiful and moving book The Potter’s House: Israeli Design in Five Languages.

And today, we’re thrilled to have her here with us, sharing her insights directly with you.

Can you introduce yourself?
I’m Ravid Rovner — a design historian, theorist, and researcher. I’ve been a digital nomad since 2020, spending a few months each year in Israel and the rest of the time abroad, living out of a suitcase.

Tell us about your work — where do you come from?
I studied industrial design at HIT and continued with a master’s and PhD in philosophy.
Already during my BA, I realized that while design itself is fun, what truly excites me is thinking about design — how it reflects cultures, political ideologies, and how it shapes people’s lives. For over a decade, I’ve been teaching design history and theory — currently in the master’s program in industrial design at Bezalel and in the Department of History and Philosophy at Shenkar. I love working with students on their projects and thinking about design together.

Where do you draw inspiration from?
As a digital nomad, I travel a lot and constantly find myself in new places. I observe the small details around me — how people talk, move, dress; how cities are organized, how transportation works, how food is seasoned, what music plays in the barbershop. I look for things that feel new or strange to me — that’s how I learn about the richness and diversity of the world.
I also visit to museums everywhere I go, from the grandest institutions to tiny local archaeology rooms with three shards of pottery. When someone turns on the light just for me — that’s when I get emotional.
Two other major sources of inspiration are jazz (especially electronic), which teaches generosity and improvisation, and science fiction, which inspires thinking about alternative realities and possible futures.

What part of your work do you love the most?
What I love most is that my work constantly allows me to learn new things. Right now, I’m studying the history of animation for a new course I’m preparing. Over the summer, I dove into the field of human–robot interaction and wrote a paper about robot gender. I’ve also been learning Greek for the past year.

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Tell us about your book “Beit HaYotzer: Israeli Design in Five Languages”. What led you to write it?
First of all, it’s a family story. The ceramic factory Beit Hayotzer was founded by my grandfather, Uri Rovner. I always knew I would write about it, and when I finished my PhD, I jumped straight into two years of research. I explored the factory’s history through interviews with people who worked there, through archival work, and through my father, who grew up in the factory and later worked there himself.
As a design theorist, I wanted to understand what lay behind the everyday objects I grew up with — to identify the design language unique to Beit Hayotzer. I discovered five distinct design “languages” developed there, each driven by different ideas. The book is part family research, part history of Israeli ceramics, and part semiotic analysis of design.

*To purchase the book “Beit HaYotzer: Israeli Design in Five Languages” at a special price (180 NIS), contact Ravid directly at 054-4788337.
Follow Beit HaYotzer on Instagram for stories from the studio: https://www.instagram.com/beit_hayotzer_ceramics/

How does craft and handwork tie into all this?
They are deeply connected to my background — one filled with materials and making. One of my grandfathers founded a ceramic factory; the other, a metal-mechanisms company. He started by hand-turning parts on a lathe and built one of Israel’s largest metalworks, Gutwein Metal Industries. My aunt, Shlomit Eisenstein, was one of Israel’s first independent glassblowers outside Bezalel, and my parents had a business in decorative concrete flooring. So I grew up surrounded by materials, production, and industry — learning about them firsthand.
This naturally made me think a lot about materials and about the relationship between handcraft and industrial work. I once wrote a paper about the truth of material, exploring how materials express ideas about honesty, integrity, and justice.

Is there such a thing as “Israeli craft”?
I think most craft made in Israel today is created with a global audience in mind — which makes sense. We live in a global world, and Israel’s local market is small.
Still, I do think there’s something that characterizes contemporary Israeli craft: it’s often very delicate and light.
I see that in your work and in other studios as well — I think it’s a form of resistance, a quiet response to the violence and tension that surrounds us.
But I still need to think and research more before I can draw real conclusions.

How has the past year — and the situation in Israel — affected your work?
Like for most of us, it’s had a profoundly negative impact.
My book came out a year after the war began, and since then, I haven’t touched anything related to Israel. I still dream of writing a small book or essay about every ceramics factory that once operated here (there were about 25). The people who worked in those factories are getting older, and their knowledge will disappear if we don’t act fast.

What are you working on these days?
I’m writing a book about rhizomatic mapping — a method I developed for synchronizing knowledge and generating new ideas. I’ve been teaching it for years at Bezalel and in the private sector, both to individuals working on personal projects and to teams seeking to align their thinking and collaborate creatively. There’s a new blog on my website, ravidrovner.com, where I share more about it. The upcoming book combines theoretical background with a practical “how-to” guide and inspiring examples. My hope is to reach broader audiences — especially those seeking to move beyond conventional “design thinking” methods toward open, non-hierarchical, multi-channel ways of thinking.

What’s a dream you still hope to fulfill?
To finish the book, keep wandering, and continue learning about the world.

Tell us something you learned from your grandmother — something concrete.
My grandmother taught me that even the smallest act can become a creative gesture — a gift that brings joy.
She showed me how to mend a hole in a sock using embroidery thread, weaving it back and forth — but always in a different color than the sock.
That was a life lesson: to repair instead of discard; to display the fix instead of hiding it; to celebrate what’s odd and different instead of conforming; and to turn the industrial into something handmade — personal and unique.
I once wrote a paper called “Fixing as a Way of Resisting” about the Fixers movement in design — and these are exactly its principles.