Dwelling
in a Time of Plagues

A Jewish creative response to real-world plagues of our time

gallery (Virtual tour here)

(Click on image to display slideshow)

Dwelling in a Time of Plagues is a Jewish creative response to real-world plagues of our time. Dwelling is a constellation of outdoor art installations at Jewish museum sites around the United States, displayed during Sukkot and Passover of 5781. Collectively, these commissions grapple with contemporary crises: the global pandemic, institutional racism and ageism, forced isolation, global warming, and the crisis for migrants and refugees.

The first works coincide with the holiday of Sukkot and delineate space for our intellectual wanderings. They reinterpret the form of the sukkah in response to our times and to our unique partner sites this October — the Holocaust Museum LA, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, and the Jewish History Museum in Tucson. Each piece responds to its host community specifically, and to our collective plight as Jews and as human beings.

We invite you to dwell with us in these physical and virtual sukkahs for our times.

 

Project Approach

CANVAS is a Jewish Funders Network-powered collaborative fund designed to encourage and support a 21st-century Jewish cultural renaissance. Grant recipients from CANVAS’ first cohort of awardees – including Reboot, Asylum Arts, LABA, and the Council of American Jewish Museums – are working with contemporary artists to explore new meanings of Sukkot and Passover. The works are designed to be viewed outdoors – responding to pandemic realities, the exciting potential for outdoor art, justice issues, and the nature of the Jewish holiday, itself.

 

Sukkot Works & Sites

Each artist was asked to develop an artwork that takes into account the themes of Sukkot, while considering safety realities per the pandemic, the outside spaces available, special opportunities at each museum, and themes of justice.

See press coverage of Dwelling in a Time of Plagues.

Project Sites

TIFFANY WOOLF

THE USPHIZIN OF THE SILVER SCREEN: HONORING THE VISIONS & VOICES OF THE PAST

HOLOCAUST MUSEUM LA

REBOOT

14TH STREET Y

HIGHLIGHTS FROM WORKS IN LOS ANGELES, PORTLAND AND TUCSON

ADAM W. MCKINNEY

SHELTER IN PLACE

OREGON MUSEUM AND CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION

ASYLUM ARTS

MIRTA KUPFERMINC

CLAMOR IN THE DESERT

JEWISH HISTORY MUSEUM AND HOLOCAUST CENTER (TUCSON)

LABA

The Dwelling Team

Artists

Tiffany Woolf

Tiffany Woolf is a filmmaker with 25 years of experience in visual arts, film and entertainment. Her work is centered around moving images as a catalyst for remembrance and legacy. Since 2017, Tiffany’s major artistic focus has been her project Silver Screen Studios, a series of documentary shorts and digital platform to celebrate the wit, wisdom and candor of seniors, both in and out of the public eye. She has traveled the country to capture the stories of older role models along with the legends we love and launched three series: “The Last Act,” “Coming of Age” and “Dispatches from Quarantine.”

Mirta Kupferminc

Mirta Kupferminc is a multidisciplinary Argentine artist, curator, lecturer, mentor, and teacher of other artists who lives and works in Buenos Aires.

Exhibiting since 1977, she has had more than 100 solo and group shows in Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Uruguay, China Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong , Germany, Israel, Poland, France, Hungary, England, United States. Her works can be found in international collections and museums. She has received local and international printmaking awards, including: Great Honor Prize (2012) in Argentina, First Prize Sivori Museum, Argentina (2018), Silver Medal Taiwan Biennale (2006), Honor Mention Taipei Biennale (1999), Third Prize at 7th Koichi Biennale (2008). She was curator of the Argentinean presentation at the Contemporary Jewish Art Jerusalem Biennale 2019.

Adam W. McKinney

Adam W. McKinney is a Gay, Black, Native, Jewish artist whose work investigates the impact of history as the persistent pursuit of social justice activism. A former member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, and Milwaukee Ballet Company, he was named one of the most influential African-Americans in Milwaukee, WI by St. Vincent DePaul. More at www.dnaworks.org.

Watch a virtual tour and artist talk with Adam W. McKinney here.

Networks

Museums

Support