Yeruham is a speck-sized town sitting amid the sand dunes and beige craters of Israel’s Negev Desert. There isn’t much there: The city has one shopping center, two fast-food restaurants and several thousand bored youths. It’s a windswept, desolate place, one of the dozens of similarly bereft and far-flung settlements that line Israel’s periphery, all existing in an orbit only a few hours drive from Tel Aviv but seemingly another universe away.
The closest museum or arts center to Yeruham is in the city of Beersheba, which is 45 minutes away, a length that is prohibitive both by distance (Israeli teens can’t drive until they turn 18) and also by cost. Which is why Milana Gitzin-Adiram, a curator with projects including the Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Biennale under her belt, decided that the solution was not bringing Yeruham’s youth to a museum. It was to bring the museum to Yeruham.