The Mevo’ot Foundation was established in 2021 to promote contemporary artistic actions inspired by the late Joav BarEl. The foundation works to create and promote diverse spaces for discourse about and with art, and to make BarEl’s work accessible to coming generations.

Joav BarEl (1933–1977) was a plastic artist, art critic for Haaretz newspaper, art lecturer and teacher of three-dimensional design in the Department of Architecture at the Technion, and a cultural agent who pioneered and accompanied inter-and multidisciplinary projects during the '60s and '70s, until his untimely death at the age of 44.

"BarEl represented a new type of artist in the context of Israeli culture – an artist who realizes the manifestation of the option of spiritual freedom, who demands of himself active involvement/participation in all levels of life and living. The act of mapping, aimed at marking the gateways to a higher level of consciousness, is a true metaphor for the essence of his journey, as one who could read the cultural map and identify signs and processes in their states of becoming. His good friend, the poet Yair Horowitz, described him as "the Mapper of Gateways." (Batia Donner, City and Utopia)

Mevo’ot (Gateways, in Hebrew) was founded to kick-start actions today inspired by Joav BarEl’s life's work. In his estate, he wrote: