Elham Rokni

Born in 1980 in Iran. In 1989 immigrated to Israel. Living and working in Tel Aviv, Israel. Graduated Bezalei Academy of Art & Design Jerusalem She create photography and video installations.

The idea of building the Home of the Meritorious Construction Worker, currently the Welfare Home Budowlani, was established in 1971. The project was chosen through a community competition from among four different proposals. The winning concept was the one of MSc Eng. Jerzy Kumelowski who together with artist Andrzej Zaborowski draw up the project documentation (construction – Eng. Bogdan Kołowski; green area and streets – Eng. Andrzej Księżopolski and Eng. Janusz Gołębiowski).

The quality of the project was confirmed by the “The Cube of the Year” award in 1974. The grand opening took place in September 1976. On the day of opening there were six residents. With time all apartments were taken.

In the Chronical of the Home of the Meritorious Construction Worker from 1976 we can read a note put down by Danuta Karpińska: “The house consists of two parts: residential and general, i.e. a dining-room decorated with beautiful ceramics from Włocławek, a café-bar, a theatre hall, a library, an out-patients’ clinic, a rehabilitation gym, which is connected with the glass part of the patio with a glass roof, a winter garden with beautiful palm trees and a hall with an original fire-place. The main wall in the winter garden is decorated with golden brown mosaic on cream marble”.

The Welfare Home Budowlani does not only provide for its residents in an attractive environment but also runs artistic-cultural activities.

On the ground floor among luxuriant surroundings we may admire a photograph Family with a self-portrait of the artist Elham Rokni. In a room upstairs that is named after Tadeusz Lamperski, a film by the same artist, Still Life is presented. She created an artificial natural environment for silkworms, which find their feet in a new paradise. In this film w find an allegory of life and death in the modern world.