Arts Emanu-El hosts free visual arts series on ‘Art, Memory and the Holocaust’

Memory and art have been bound together since cave dwellers first drew primitive bison and horses on cave walls. From those prehistoric moments until today, artists’ pictures and stories usually become the way we see the past, experience the present and envision the future. And for us Jews today, we who must “Never Forget,” the linkage of memory and art is crucial.

The generations that directly experienced the Holocaust have almost passed from among us, while troubling current events threaten to dim our memories. It falls on post-Holocaust Jewish artists to use contemporary forms of artistic expression to help us viscerally explore our history, its impact on who we are and where we are headed.

Two of the most interesting artists in Rhode Island confronting this challenge of art and memory from a Jewish perspective are installation artist Jonathan Sharlin and art photographer Alexandra Broches. Both are accomplished, successful artists who use an array of fascinating photographic and artistic techniques to bring us traces and memories of the Holocaust.

Arts Emanu-El at Temple Emanu-El, in Providence, is proud to coordinate exhibitions of Sharlin’s and Broches’ work and to facilitate a related series of talks. In total, there are five events on the theme of art as memory keeper in March and April, all free and open to the public.

Beginning March 3 and continuing until April 30, Sharlin’s powerful art installation, “Portrait Narratives,” allows us to walk among larger-than-life photo portraits and word panels of Rhode Island Holocaust survivors. East-Siders will recognize many people – including Edward O. Adler, Ray Eichenbaum and Leah Eliash – whose lives, images and words were so dear to the beating heart of our Providence Jewish community.

Then, beginning March 14 and continuing until April 2, Broches’ hauntingly beautiful digital collages in “Letters and Pictures from a Box” invite us to puzzle out the ways that suddenly discovered letters, photographs and documents from another time and place give clues and glimpses into one family’s Holocaust narrative.

There will be an opening event for both exhibits, each with an artist’s talk and reception. On Sunday, March 5, Sharlin will speak about his creative and personal journey toward “Portrait Narratives.” On Thursday, March 22, Broches will tell of her discovery of a box containing family letters, photographs and documents, which initiated a personal and artistic project that continues to this day.

On April 19, the theme of this visual arts series, “Art as Memory Keeper,” will be explored in a panel discussion led by Deborah Johnson, a professor of art history and women’s studies at Providence College and cantor at Temple Sinai, in Cranston. The multitalented Johnson, who received a Ph.D. in Art History from Brown University, first specialized in European and Asian art, but while at Providence College she has focused on 20th- and 21st-century Western Art, Women’s Studies and Black Studies. In 2013, Johnson earned a certificate in Jewish Sacred Music from Hebrew College. Her cross-cultural perspective on art as memory keeper promises to be fascinating.

Johnson will be joined by two panelists who are also engaged in exploring the links between memory and art: Sharlin, whose interest in the theme prompted his arts series, and visual artist Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, a professor of photography and director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for the Humanities. Matthew describes herself as “transcultural, living between cultures,” with an expertise in photography that explores culture and identity. Born in England and raised in India, Matthew now makes Rhode Island her home.

Finally, during March and April, Sharlin, along with his wife, Olivia, will be reaching out to adult and teenage members of communities across Rhode Island, inviting them to visit “Portrait Narratives” in an effort to help all Rhode Islanders learn about the Holocaust by walking among the portraits and words of R.I. Holocaust survivors.

Sharlin and Temple Emanu-El received a grant from the Bliss, Gross, Horowitz Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation to support these activities.

The visual arts series is the penultimate event in Arts Emanu-El’s Jewish arts and culture season for 2016-2017. On April 30, the public is invited to a joyous 69th birthday celebration of Israel’s independence. Details are available at the Temple Emanu-El website, www.teprov.org, under the What’s Happening-Arts Emanu-El link.

LINDA SHAMOON  is co-chair of Arts Emanu-El at Temple Emanu-El.