Hilla Shamia

Hilla Shamia was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1983.  She studied industrial design at Holon Institute of Technology (Israel) from 2007 to 2011, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree. The following year, she established her eponymous design studio in Tel Aviv, focusing on product design with an emphasis on material research. She draws inspiration from nature, the progression of time, and material exploration.

As of this writing, Shamia is arguably best known for her Wood Casting^TM furniture. First launched in 2012 while Shamia was still a student, the series centers round a unique technology of casting metal in wood. Using mostly locally sourced, whole tree trunks, Shamia cuts the wood lengthwise and inserts it into a mold, which defines the furniture’s overall form. She then pours liquid metal over the wood. The resulting, unique pieces are defined by the two contrasting, but balanced, materials.

Shamia’s work has been included in multiple exhibitions and events, including, but not limited to: Wonderland at 19 Greek Street during London Design Festival (2013); Budapest Design Week (2013), Things of Edible Beauty during Milan Design Week (2015), Pitti Filati 78 in Florence (2016), High Contrast at Taiwan Designers Week with the HIT Faculty of Design (2016), and Overview at Design Museum Holon (2016). In 2015, as part of the Syndicate exhibition at Saga in Tel Aviv, Shamia collaborated with illustrator Miki Mottes to create a series of totems based on Mottes’ illustrations; each was achieved using a traditional glassblowing technique. That same year, she was a resident designer at Yeruham Design Termainal in Yeruham, Israel.

Shamia’s work is included in the Tiroche DeLeon Collection in Tel Aviv.