Since opening its doors in 2017, the gallery has been both a stage and a home for artists in the fields of crafts and design, as well as a space for experiencing with materials and discussing the essence and place of traditional and contemporary craft making. The gallery was established by Adi Shabtai Pepo, director of the Ceramic and Crafts Association of Israel, and Nir Harmat, who was also the gallery’s curator from 2017 to 2019. In September 2020, Meirav Rahat was appointed the gallery’s new curator.

Located in lively south Tel Aviv with its many galleries and workspaces, B.Y5 gallery brings together craft and design artists and professionals from various fields, and the public who frequent the area. The gallery hosts solo, group and annual exhibitions of the association’s artists, artist meetings, lectures and content events—all with the aim of increasing exposure to the artistic activity in the fields of materials and craft.

As the gallery’s chief curator, Rahat aims to connect local histories and established designers with the field’s contemporary dynamism and young artists. By presenting multidisciplinary thinking on the essence of material and issues of material culture she hopes to transform the gallery into a base for practical and theoretical discussion that expands ways of looking at contemporary work and the cultural dialogue between past, present and future, tradition and technology, and the place of the creator and the creative act.