Nitzan Satt:
Word Problems

The title of Nitzan Satt's exhibition was taken from the field of mathematics, or rather - mathematical literature. One of the main themes at the heart of the exhibition was pedagogy (Greek: "to lead a child")–educational theories, the discourse about them, and the cultural values ​​hidden in them.

For years, Satt had taught architecture and art at Bedouin schools in Avtin, Ras Ali, and Khaled, where she encountered the perception of mathematics as an alien Western subject and a pedagogy that had created a disconnect between theory, words, and life. 

As a result, she began to specialize in "ethnomathematics'', a humanistic conception of mathematics, about which the researcher Ada Katsap had written. Ethnomathematics traces the social, historical, and cultural aspects of mathematics and includes them in teaching. 

 

Satt finds mathematical models and didactic schemes everywhere, both in pools (leading protagonists in the Word Problem literature) and in wells, which are presented in 2-channel video work: a young woman fills bucket after bucket from the well, and on the other side of the work, she writes the problem in paint. The pool is filled up with letters, "Rami has a bucket of a size…" (as a word problem traditionally begins), but not water.