These one-of-a-kind artist's books, created for a solo exhibition at the Maine Jewish Museum, explore my family’s survival of the Holocaust, their immigration to the United States, and the effects of this legacy on my life.
Using facsimiles of writing, photos, and other ephemera, I created a series of monoprints that were torn, folded, and bound in myriad ways. The resulting books are sculptural objects that serve as containers in which to hold these stories. Rather than being specifically illustrative, they are evocative of the journeys we take from one moment to the next.
This body of work also reflects a broader theme that I have been investigating for decades — how each of us is shaped not only by our own experiences and the memories we hold, but also by the experiences and memories of our ancestors. I am interested in how these narratives are passed from one generation to the next –– not always in obvious, but often significant, ways. Examining these individual formative stories is certainly as relevant today as ever given current mass human migrations across the planet.
The work presented at the MJM was an exploration of the intersection between past and present, and the unintended consequences of keeping secrets. Making these books cracked a Pandora’s vase spilling out more questions than answers. Perhaps I will always be trying to interpret the silences of my childhood.
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