OBJECTS
I want to walk into each room where this object has lived, to feel the volume of space, to know what pictures were on the walls, how the light fell from the windows. And I want to know whose hands it has been in and what they felt about it, and thought about it – if they thought about it. I want to know what it has witnessed.
- Edmund de Waal, The Hare With Amber Eyes
Building on the Hasidic teaching which suggests that everything in the material world has its own melody and meaning, I asked each of the narrators to show me a personal artefact and to explain its significance. I was given a wide range of life accessories: a collection of notes for a book, a silver spoon, a gold powder compact, a drawing, an amber pendant, a violet brooch, an invitation, each of which had its own story to tell. As companions to the life experiences of their owners, these objects , inevitably, carry us, as viewers, into the heart of destruction. But they also carry us somewhere else. Behind the palette of obliteration that they so palpably present, we also find the pulse that once beat in Jewish Vilna; we find stories of partisan courage and acts of reverence, remembrance and artistic expression. We find, ultimately, what they have witnessed.
In each segment below, you will find images of the narrators' biographical objects, their explanation of what those objects mean to them, images of the 'visual biographies' and 'memory boxes' created by artists using those objects and a statement by the artist about the artwork created.
- Edmund de Waal, The Hare With Amber Eyes
Building on the Hasidic teaching which suggests that everything in the material world has its own melody and meaning, I asked each of the narrators to show me a personal artefact and to explain its significance. I was given a wide range of life accessories: a collection of notes for a book, a silver spoon, a gold powder compact, a drawing, an amber pendant, a violet brooch, an invitation, each of which had its own story to tell. As companions to the life experiences of their owners, these objects , inevitably, carry us, as viewers, into the heart of destruction. But they also carry us somewhere else. Behind the palette of obliteration that they so palpably present, we also find the pulse that once beat in Jewish Vilna; we find stories of partisan courage and acts of reverence, remembrance and artistic expression. We find, ultimately, what they have witnessed.
In each segment below, you will find images of the narrators' biographical objects, their explanation of what those objects mean to them, images of the 'visual biographies' and 'memory boxes' created by artists using those objects and a statement by the artist about the artwork created.
Fania Brantsovsky
Rachel Kostanian
Josef Levinson
Chasia Spanerflig
Dora Pilianskiene
Berl Glazer
Gita Geseleva
Margarita Civuncik
Cholem Sapsai
Isroel Galperin