“Coming Home: Portraits of Jewish Women” is a multimedia art project about Jewishness, transgender, and love. The project will present gender also beyond the standard male/female binary and will look at the intersection between Jewishness and gender in women. I am looking for participants for the project in Boston and NYC.
As an artist and a woman with a transgender history, I am looking for role models and other trans women to learn from. I am taking pictures of Jewish women who are also transgender and gender non-conforming. Two of my concerns with the project are inclusivity and visibility. In order not to “other” my subjects, I would like to include family members and/or partner(s) in the photographs. In this way, I will depict the web of connections each person has rather than isolating individuals, thereby giving visibility without creating spectacle.
When I was growing up, there were no role models for me of Jewish women with a gender that was not binary. If I had had someone to look up to or someone to ask, perhaps my journey would have been easier as an individual. However, I believe that the wider a community’s base, the more stable the community is. By showing images of Jewish women who are also transgender, I am shedding light on the fact that the Jewish community is richer than we expect. Presenting these individuals in the context of relationships that are familiar to us is the first step toward creating a larger, more diverse Jewish community.
I am looking for participants for the project who are willing to be photographed and have their photographs exhibited in an art gallery. Please contact me if you are interested, and please pass this along to other women that might be interested.
I live and work in Berlin and will be doing a residency at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University during April 2013. I will be taking pictures during the first 2-3 weeks of April in/around Boston but can also travel to New York City for a few days to take pictures. I have exhibited my work around the world, and you can learn more about my artwork at www.yishay.com.
For more info on my upcoming exhibition at Brandeis: http://www.brandeis.edu/wsrc/arts/comingsoon.html.
Yishay Garbasz
hbiproject@yishay.com
http://www.yishay.com"
No comments:
Post a Comment