As Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat wielded a paintbrush to jazz up a tabletop backgammon board in the outdoor "shuk" (market), even the old regulars at the surrounding tables stopped their games to look on with grins.

 

The mayor was there to tour the Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate) project, an urban art initiative in the vivid Machane Yehuda open-air marketplace involving painters, sculptors, photographers, graphic artists and even some of the stall owners. The works are clustered mainly in and along the borders of what's known as the Iraqi section of the bustling bazaar.

 

"It's a joint venture between the merchants, the Student Union and the municipality," Barkat explains as he walks with reporters and well-wishers through the alleys of the shuk, admiring the eclectic authentic artworks being created on trash bins, exposed walls and concrete surfaces of the marketplace.

 

In recent years, this downtown bazaar has seen trendy shops and cafés popping up among its multigenerational vendors of fresh produce, meat, cheese, fish, baked goods and spices, as well as housewares, Judaica and ethnic apparel. The brand-new Jerusalem Light Rail stops along one side of the blocks-long shuk, while several bus lines feed the other.

 

"It's joy; it's part of the public space of the city," says Barkat. "Machane Yehuda is a very unique place and people love to come here. [Tabula Rasa] adds color; it adds spirit to the changes that are happening here."
 
Street artist Itamar Paloge was chosen as the project curator. "I took part in previous projects to 'color up' neglected parts of the city, and this time I got to guide the project," he says. "My goal is that I just want the streets to be colorful, alive and full of art." Paloge gathered about 30 artists by recruiting students from the Bezalel, Hadassah and Musrara schools of art and photography in Jerusalem as well as local graphic and street artists.

 

Alina Goldberg is finishing up a whimsical stencil work of people with vegetable heads, painted onto electrical circuit boxes affixed to a corner of the marketplace. Down the road, she and Roni Bussani have completed an etching titled "Cauliflower Head" on a centuries-old stone wall. Goldberg got the idea for these works from taking photos of a former roommate holding veggies on top of her head, which led to a visual revelation: "Some of the vendors in the shuk actually look like the vegetables they sell," she explains with a laugh.

 

The mayor took a spray-paint can in hand to help Canadian-born Yehuda Braun make a giant wood-backed map of the market. Braun also invited workers from the restaurants of the Iraqi shuk to join in the project. "I enjoy working with people, making art accessible to people who don't usually find themselves in art galleries," says Braun. He was told that the finished map will be mounted on a wall somewhere in the vicinity of the Iraqi shuk.

 

"Everything being created here is permanent - it will last as long as the streets themselves are here," says Paloge.