About Elinor Milchan

Elinor Milchan, an Israeli-born multidisciplinary artist. She has lived and worked across various countries, crafting a unique approach to storytelling through innovative theater, visual and publishing projects. Her creative vision consistently merges art forms to create immersive and one-of-a-kind experiences.

In the process of her visual work, Milchan explores the experience of time through the phenomenology of light and multiple panel composition, both in video and photography. For years, she has explored ways to bring the 2 dimensional format into an expression of time and space. Light being the "essence" of photography, Milchan examines and explores the object being photographed through it. Elinor's unique technique develops and deepens within the processes she creates in this investigation, ‘a powerful, lyrical vision, removed from galleries, shows, art strategies and aesthetic exercises, a vision owing itself only to the artist.” *

Curators and critics alike, both in Israel and abroad, from the Tel Aviv Museum (Nili Goren), the LACMA (Robert Sobieszek) to Art in Art America (Daniel Belasco), have praised the inventiveness of her unique techniques, describing it as “liberating the medium”, reminding “us that the essential of photography is light itself.” **

Milchan’s exhibitions and work have been featured and reviewed in various international art publications, and included in contemporary art auctions such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury.

Her work is included in many private and public collections, including the Tel Aviv Museum, and has received support for public art collaborations and installations by the likes of organizations such as MTV, JPMorgan/Chase, NewsCorp/20th Century Fox, Leaf, Bezalel, UBS, Credit Suisse, Silverstein Properties, BCRE-US, Ernst&Young and Africa-Israel. She has created numerous special projects and commissions, including live video performances with orchestra, temporary and permanent public installations both in Israel, Europe and the States.

In 2024, Say My Name, which she co-wrote with Ronit Muszkatblit, premiered at HaDive, a performing arts center they co-founded in Tel Aviv. Say My Name is an immersive theatrical production that received support from Mifal HaPais and Keren Tarbut. The work has been praised both by the audience and the media.

Her notable children’s play, The Magical Letter, adapted from her platinum best-selling book, won critical acclaim under the direction of Ronit Muszkatblit. Originally produced by the Haifa Theatre, the play garnered several prizes at the 2021 International Children’s Theater Festival in Haifa, including Best Play, Best Video Design, and Best Stage Design. It was also officially recognized for its excellency by the Israel’s Office of Arts and Culture.

Milchan’s project, Untitled 194418, co-written with Sharon Burstein Bichachi, will debut in May 2025 at Dortmund Theater in Germany, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII. It has already received the support of the Goethe Institute and the Office of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the support from the Rabinovich Foundation.

Milchan has published several books, including two for children, The Invisible Story (co-created with Keren Ann Zeidel), and The Magical Letter, both published in Israel by Yediot Sfarim. The Magical Letter became platinum within months of publication, and was awarded by the Israel’s Ministry of Education, and distributed throughout Israeli schools with the support of the PJ Library program, and adapted to stage.

In addition, Elinor Milchan taught at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 2010. She was the co-founder of Artea Projects, co-curating public art projects in New York, as well as the co-founder of Hadive, a space that cultivates avant-garde performances and inspiring visual expressions. She also wrote and directed a couple documentaries on art, one of which, Todo Cambia, was presented in several festivals in the States and in the UK, as well as on prime TV.

Milchan continues to work on projects that bridge the visual and performing arts.