»TRANSITIONS« – MULTIMEDIA ART EXHIBITION

The Leo Baeck Foundation’s arts and culture programme DAGESH. Jüdische Kunst im Kontext (Jewish Art in Context) in cooperation with the global network for Jewish culture, Asylum Arts cordially invite Jewish artists from across Europe and the Americas to participate in a multimedia arts exhibition »TRANSITIONS« that will premier in Berlin on June 30th, 2021.

»TRANSITIONS« seeks to create a new Jewish visibility that transcends borders in a European and transatlantic exchange. Via video and sound art, text composition, and other forms of visual and digital arts, selected artists will showcase their experience and understanding of solidarity and resistance through aesthetics and artistic practice from a shared and yet diverse contemporary Jewish perspective.

The concept of »TRANSITIONS« describes a liminal space, a threshold condition in which society currently finds itself, both socially and politically. A “betwixt and between” state, where the usual order of things is disrupted and new potentials and limits can be challenged and explored. With »TRANSITIONS« we seek to aesthetically explore ways to create newness founded on the very loss and (transgenerational) trauma of the original places. Speaking from a multiplicity of situated Jewish positions, the art pieces in the exhibition will display the artists’ engagement with political events, discourses and movements that impact and mobilise them in their specific context.

In appreciation of elements of otherness as well as forms of commonality, where can art be a means for solidarity and resistance to push for social change?

How can conflicts and generational gaps within Jewish communities be artistically addressed to transition to a paradigm shift?

What political and societal challenges, realities, and possibilities move Jewish artists within their specific geographic and social contexts? How can solidarity with one another and for one another be artistically expressed with other groups and struggles?

The multimedia exhibition will be part of a three-day Festival of Contemporary Jewish Art running under the same theme. The international festival connects artists with one another, encourages coalitions and contributes to shaping a creative, academic, and societal transition through the Art of Resistance (“Wehrhafte Kunst”). »TRANSITIONS« will subsequently exhibit in a number of European countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Netherlands, Greece, UK, and Austria (dates and places tbd).

Submission deadline is on Tuesday, April 13th 2021 at 12 PM (CET).