“Community” is a key component of our Community Creative Fellowship. Fellows Adriana Katzew and Yoni Battat have been leading workshops since March, engaging participants in meaningful conversation and artistic exploration. These sessions are also a source of inspiration for the fellows as they have been incorporating community-sourced stories into their work, and you are invited!
Share your stories through images of meaningful objects, family recipes and even your own voice, and they might be incorporated into a visual and/or musical work by the Fellows. You can easily submit by clicking the links below:
- Photograph Your Story (submit a photograph of a meaningful family object)
- Taste Your Story (submit recorded audio of you sharing a family food memory)
- Sing Your Story (submit a recording of yourself singing provided lyrics)
For a little more context, this month we asked the Fellows: With the workshops now in full swing and partnerships happening with multiple groups, can you share a bit about how the community has been/will be influencing the creation of your work?
“In the workshops I have shared objects and stories of my loved ones, and, in return, I have been entrusted with the objects and stories the participants have shared back. These have been the most powerful moments in the workshops for me. It allows me to connect with individuals I have never met in deeper ways; it allows me to get a glimpse into their or their families’ stories, it allows me to listen carefully and caringly to their stories…. In working with a wide array of participants in the workshops—some older, some younger, some who are going through similar stages in life, some who self-identify as Latinx Jews, as Jews of color, as Mizrahi, as Sepharadi—I’ve been paying close attention to the objects they bring and the stories they share, grounded in their own life experiences and what is meaningful to them at this point in their lives. Their objects and stories often make me think of the objects and stories I’ll use in my work. Some of these objects and stories will be woven into an artwork that I’m creating that reflects our collective community.”
—Adriana Katzew (read her full post here)
“In my workshop ‘Singing Our Stories,’ I’ve been inviting participants to have a direct influence on my work. In the intimate and deep discussions of these gatherings, we reflect on the many different ways our identities and histories are fragmented. From this place of openness and groundedness, participants brainstorm lyrics for my song ‘From the Fragments.’ Creativity flows abundantly with participants typing their ideas into the chat while I sing their suggestions as they come in, one after another, in real time. One idea inspires another, which inspires another, in a beautiful feedback loop of creative energy. The suggestions that accumulate in the Zoom chat expand far beyond anything I could have thought of myself, yet they resonate in their simplicity and their truth. The song that results from these workshops will be a richer and deeper expression of vulnerability and strength than anything I could have written on my own.”
—Yoni Battat (read his full post here)
Interested in learning more about Adriana and Yoni? Watch the intro video below.
This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here. MORE