November 24 2009 Press Release

The Cultural Heritage Artists Project of the Orchard Street Shul (CHAP No.1) is a vibrant, collective exhibition, combining the creative work of more than 30 artists who produced new works in a wide variety of media and aesthetic style.

The Orchard Street Shul (Congregation Beth Israel) is a historic orthodox synagogue in an area of New Haven that was largely dismantled during urban renewal of the 1960s, and the building is one of the last reminders of the period when this neighborhood was the center of a diverse community of immigrants and migrants. The impetus of this Artists Project was to partner with this small congregation to share the history and legacy of the building and community, in an effort to raise its visibility and help support its preservation.

The Project invited new work responding to the environment, history, or architecture of the Orchard Street Shul, with the intent of celebrating the heritage of this traditional congregation and the richness of the neighborhood. The criteria for participation were specified—the artist must visit the Shul as an important step in developing an approach to the challenge of creating work based on this particular site. In addition, each artist was asked that “all work produced for this project maintain respect for the synagogue as the spiritual home of an ongoing segment of New Haven's Jewish community, and as the legacy of past generations.”

The artist participants, who come from diverse cultural backgrounds and geographic regions, were advised of these guidelines for the exhibition at the outset. The Project's Artistic Committee reviewed all proposed works in terms of these guidelines, and ultimately found that Richard Kamler's work fell outside of the guidelines.

Although his initial concept of broader community engagement was encouraged, Mr. Kamler did not complete the research nor preparation for the exhibition in a way that would focus on the Orchard Street Shul as required.  Consequently, when finally presented for review, the project was not accepted by the Artistic Committee.  With adequate time, Mr. Kamler was asked to continue to develop his idea in a form that the Artistic Committee felt would meet the guidelines, but he declined.  As a result, his work was not included as part of the exhibition. The Artistic Committee respects the reputation and career of Mr. Kamler, and regrets not being able to include a work by this artist.

The Artistic Committee is comprised of participating artists who are committed to the concept of working together to create new forms of collaboration and community partnerships. The engagement with the Shul required forging new approaches to finding common ground between artists and this community partner. Only through community-building, understanding and research have we been able to successfully bring this creative expression to the public. The Artistic Committee stands by its commitment to respect the Orchard Street Shul, as agreed in the initial guidelines, and is excited by the high quality of work inspired by this building, community, and its neighborhood.

The works in the exhibition range from the historical and the pictorial, to the abstract, and include provocative works addressing ongoing debates within the local community and across New Haven in general. Some of the works engage community directly as participants while others are more narrative. All of these works, however, fall within the original guidelines that asked artists to respond to a particular community and give voice to specific partners.

Ultimately free expression must include the right of artists and partners to define the guidelines for their exhibitions, and by extension, the right of refusal for works which fail to meet the guidelines.


http://culturalheritageartistsproject.org/PressReleaseNov24.html

What the NCAC Told its Supporters

The NCAC (National Coalition Against Censorship), in its newsletter and in its annual report, provided its supporters with a description of Richard Kamler's proposed project that is markedly different from the proposal that was submitted to the Artistic Committee of the Cultural Heritage Artists Project.  
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unedited description from the NCAC Newsletter:

Organizers of the Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project requested that artist Richard Kamler modify his installation at The John Slade Ely House for Contemporary Art in New Haven.  Organizers expressed concern that an element of the work, interwoven pages from the Koran and the Torah, may offend viewers.
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unedited description from the NCAC Annual Report (image is on the cover)

Cover: Right Around the Corner by Richard Kamler
The work consists of a table with a paper tablecloth of interwoven pages from the Torah and the Qur’an.

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Richard Kamler's proposal-
as submitted and reviewed by the Artistic Committee of the Cultural Heritage Artists Project

- Tearing up the Bible and the Qu'ran and weaving/meshing them back together
- 1" wide strips of sacred text
- 2 Jews and 2 Muslims sitting at the Tablecloth
- a bowl with Hebrew and Arabic voices

- later addition: cover the tablecloth with plexiglass, and provide an electric etching tool for viewers to mark the protected tablecloth with electronic markings

- later addition: bowl with closed Bible and Qu'ran

- later addition: specified that the 2 Jews and 2 Muslims should be community leaders of the Orchard Street Shul and the Masjid Al-Islam

The artist would not consider separating the components.
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We all knew that the insurance companies would not allow the public to use power tools unsupervised, and so the question of asking the public to etch into the protected work got little discussion.

The mixed voices was a beautiful element, welcomed by all, and therefore barely discussed.

The bowl with the closed Bible and Qur'an was accepted, as long it was respectful.

As for the other components, they proved to be mutually exclusive.

Locating Community Members willing to participate was Richard Kamler's job, as artist, and we read his ambiguous proposal with the understanding that he had begun this process.

We eventually realized that he may not have found Community Members willing to sanction the installation by sitting at the cut sacred texts and engaging the close examination of the texts that Richard Kamler set as the purpose of the Installation/Performance.  This became especially clear when the NCAC, after taking up the the cause,  told CHAP that to avoid "censorship" we could find two Jewish and two Muslim community members willing to sit at a Tablecloth that violated the long-held traditions of their communities.

To help the artist, to get this work shown, we tried to find community members who were willing to do so, but to make this work about the Orchard Street Shul and the Masjid Al-Islam, we needed to find Community members of these communities. We reported back that one Community Leader would do so, but not sitting at a tablecloth which violated the long-held religious practice of the Communities in question.  Others reported that they needed evidence that there was no religious violation, but in fact there no evidence to give them. Others said that it was a clear violation, based on the information that the artist provided.

Working with a November 30 deadline, a final independent meeting actually took place with one community member who said that he would consider participating in an alternative location, but there was no time to communicate this, as the Press Release had already gone to the press (but not to us) 10 days before the agreed upon date.

In October, prior to the intervention of the NCAC, the work was accepted with closed, uncut Bible and Qu'ran, asking the artist to supply the names of the Community Members who had agreed to participate and to clarify that the discussion was about this Community -- which was the focused and purposeful topic of the Exhibition. 

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Compare what the NCAC told its Supporters to what it told the Public in a Press Release:
http://culture-challenge.blogspot.com/p/what-ncac-told-public.html

The NCAC's omission of the proposed participation of Community Leaders from traditionally observant Orthodox Jewish and Muslim religious organizations in communications to supporters is worth noting. Anyone with common knowledge of the religious practices of these Communities could fill in the blanks in this story with that information.

My Father and I Explore Cultural Identity Through Community Based Research and Performance Art

photo by Julian Voloj

When I received a call for entries for the Orchard Street Shul Artist Cultural Heritage Project, I was intrigued. An opportunity for artists, designers and historians to come together to explore the past and present collective memory of New Haven's final remaining historic synagogue. I had just returned from Germany, where I spent the summer working on an art-based research project called Berlin's Eruv. I conducted interviews with members of Berlin's Jewish community concerning the highly visible presence of the monuments and memorials commemorating Jewish life (death) and the impact these structures have had on their individual and communal Jewish identities.

Fascinated with the idea that history and community can be present but appear to be invisible without communal engagement, I wanted to apply this concept to a new project. I asked my father, Gonzalo Escobar, if he would be interested in collaborating with me.

For the last 13 years, my father — whose background is in education, psychology and socio-cultural anthropology — has produced a weekly radio show called Si Se Puede. He focuses on issues affecting local, state, and national Latino communities. My father has the amazing gift of connecting with people and making them feel comfortable. His interviews are never pre-scripted. Instead, his interviews are created dynamically, in response to what interviewees say about their personal experiences and the feelings about their topic that they project.

He agreed to work with me and the two of us drove from Chicago to New Haven to conduct interviews with former members and friends of the Orchard Street Shul. Since this is a community based, site specific project, we really didn't know what to expect prior to our arrival. Ultimately, whatever my father and I made would be created in response to the needs and wants of individuals we were about to meet.

Our interviewees told us stories of flirting on the front steps of the shul, eating herring and kichel, speaking Jewish (Yiddish), finding first jobs, going on first dates, learning bar mitzvah portions, and hearing (or having) loud conversations in the women's section. Their collective energy and enthusiasm was far too contagious to pass up and we determined that the actual act of sharing of stories (telling the stories, listening, engaging) was equally as important as the audio that we collected.

Not wanting these stories to begin and end with our recordings, but instead to inspire and trigger more conversations, we attempted to create an environment conducive to chit chat and shmoozing. Our piece, entitled Talking about Orchard Street is a low-tech installation where visitors will be invited to sit in comfortable armchairs, sample herring and kichel, listen to excerpts from interviews and engage in dialog with each other.
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Maya Escobar is a performance artist, Internet curator, and editor. She uses the web as a platform for engaging in critical community dialogues that concern processes by which identities are socially and culturally constructed. She performs multiple identities, sampling widely from online representations of existing cultural discourses. Her identifications as a Latina-Jewish artist, dyslexic blogger, fitness enthusiast, activist, and educator are indexed by the blogs she keeps, the visual and textual links she posts, the books, articles, and blog posts she cites, the public comments she leaves, and the groups she joins.

Escobar received her MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited work in Spain, Guatemala, United States, Germany, Venezuela and Chile.
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this piece originally appeared on MyJewishLearing.com

Hegemonic language in Artistic Practice

Inventing new artistic formats to challenge the dominant cultural paradigms is fraught with unforeseen hidden obstacles. Although others have gone before us, studying the trials of their trail-blazing work only confirms that the route to open culture is not an easy one.

In keeping with the intention of celebrating heritage and cultural diversity, we ask that all work produced for this project maintain respect for the synagogue as the spiritual home of an ongoing segment of New Haven's Jewish Community, and as the legacy of past generations.

One of the more interesting texts on this subject comes from the dance world, with Carol Marie Webster's sharing of her own experiences, learning, and doubts in "The Rubber Meets the Road: Community Arts Activism and Cultural Hegemony."  Dance is collaborative art, and therefore the assumed cultural commonalities and differences may emerge differently, and the power structure may be clearer, as a real "director" is animating the collaboration.  We have much to learn from these collaborations, which are potentially sincere sharing among equals.  In this essay Webster asks the right questions:

. . . Hegemonic language is communication that expressly elevates one culture or cultural ideology, to the detriment and expected subordination of another. Attentive to Chukwudi Anthony Njoku’s assertion that identifies language as the “very root” of a community’s spiritual communion, I recognize language as the glue for the binding and affirmation of community.[6] Language in this sense functions as an activity and a space: It is a central space where individuals perform out their belongingness and community identity.

In community art practice, might we not think of the very rituals, of the customs, of a people/s as a form of language? I am thinking of Jonathan Culler's interpretation of Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics, using the example of custom as language: that when a man wears a grey suit he is merely wearing a suit, but when he wears a bright yellow one he is making a statement.  From outside our culture, this makes no sense, but inside the cultural language of our time, we get it. (p 111 Ferdinand de Saussure, by Jonathan D. Culler - if google books is accurate)


The language of this Community, the Orchard Street Shul, and the presumed language of its neighbor, the Masjid,  is the language of ritual custom.  What is the "sign" given to a specific Community - and to its specific neighbor -- when their (shared) basic laws and customs are violated?  Is this not a sign of disrespect?

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Note: The by-laws of the Orchard Street Shul specify "Orthodox", and the name "Shul" is itself a key indicator of tradition.  That there are many Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and others who within their own traditions have modified or abandoned traditional ritual customs is irrelevant, even if that includes some members of the specified communities, and the majority of the artist-participants in CHAP. 

That the artist in this case claims that he had legal "work-arounds" is of course of interest - but relevant only if he communicated this to the Artistic Committee of CHAP, to the communities in question, and was prepared to make this documentation a part of the proposed installation.  If the artist did have evidence of "work-arounds", true arbitration by the  NCAC, including verifying that all parties were discussing the same description of the work and the same information, might have been helpful here.

Art World Today - The Food Chain is Broken

post by Cynthia Beth Rubin, reposted from the IDC list, Tue Jun 19  2007

Relevant to this discussion because one of the goals of CHAP was to empower artists through a shared project of creating an exhibition together.
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I am curious about how others are reacting to the buzz on the big art fairs.  In particular, I was struck by comments in Carol Vogel's report from Art Basel, June 14, NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/arts/design/14fair.html

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quotes from Vogel's text:

Collectors are grumbling about the scarcity of top-quality art.

“There are some good things, but not as many as there used to be here,” said Donald L. Bryant, a Manhattan collector and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. “The market is so hot, and the demand is so great, it’s getting harder to find great art.”

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The food chain is broken.  Everywhere I go, I find intelligent people working on interesting ideas - wonderful artists who have stockpiles of work in their attics, basements, under their beds, or digitally stashed on hard-drives.  I am not talking about totally unrecognized artists, but about artists who once were in important shows, who had their work discussed at length in art magazines, or even on the cover of art magazines, or have been honored with grants and commissions.  Not overlooking younger artists, we find artists at all stages of their careers who are making installations or exhibitions in their homes, restaurants, wherever they can.

I am writing from Avignon.  Yesterday I stumbled into a gallery where stacks of abstract paintings recalled the 1970s, but the gallery owner explained that even these do not satisfy the local market of buyers who are clamoring for Provencal scenes which could have been painted more than 100 years ago.  On Saturday night I went to an open house by an established artist in one of those elite "year-in-Provence" towns --- an artist whose name shows up in google searches of auctions - -and who does some interesting work - and he had the stockpiles described above.  I also visited the new contemporary art museum "Collection Lambert" , and saw the Cy Twombly exhibit http://www.collectionlambert.com/pages/expofutur.htm.  Nice paintings, but it still is not clear how these merit the title "quality" while many others did not get there.

We know that we live in a curated time, a time in which the interest comes not from the artists but from those who envision and organize exhibits around conceptual movements that they either identify or invent (who knows?).  If work falls outside of the parameters of the curatorial mission, then it is not shown.  If work is too similar to already selected work, it is not shown. 

But if work goes too long without being shown, it fall out of view of the curators, and it is difficult to resurrect it.  Consider this observation in the Vogel article:

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quotes from Vogel's text:

Art fairs help to gauge popular tastes, and dealers hungry for material often revisit artists who have gone out of fashion. A decade ago no one would have paid attention to the installation of Belgium street signs by Marcel Broodthaers adorning the booth of Michael Werner, a dealer in Cologne and New York. But by the afternoon of opening day they had all been sold.

“Michael has had them since 1969,” said Gordon VeneKlasen, his partner. “He showed them at Mary Boone in New York in 1987, and nobody touched them. Now everyone wants to have them.”
 
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The non-artist frequently has a view of artists receiving first local attention, then national, then international, all of the basis of aesthetic or conceptual merit.  What is really happening, however, is that if artists are interested in "the market" (and many are not), that they artists are forced to spend more and more of their time second guessing the curators.  Others, who do "quality work", fall into void.  A few fortunate ones, like Marcel Broodthaers, may get pulled out again, but consider that he might not have been - that all these years he had to pay storage for work that 20 years later is "great".  Was his timing off?

Is there anyway to mend the food chain? Do we care?  What does the "lack of quality work" mean for the many artists making quality work that never gets shown?

Cynthia Beth Rubin
http://CBRubin.net
 

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Want to know more about how the Art World works?

see Sharon Butler's video - especially the first part with her great pyramid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ro3F_6MvE6c
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from a letter to the NCAC on July 19, 2010

As the NCAC refused to discuss our case with us, and as the months went by, it became increasingly evident that they may have read a different description of Richard Kamler's proposal than the one that was reviewed in September 2009.  Finally, in an April 9 2010 telephone call, we agreed that there might be differences in facts, and the NCAC agreed to look at our correspondence.

We decided to begin with the most essential component: the original proposal from the artist, the one submitted for review.  This was sent to the NCAC by email on April 14, with a short note. It was sent again, on July 19, with the message below. It was sent a third time in September, as a simple forward.

We await a reply.
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The time has come for the NCAC to remove the inaccurate description from the NCAC website. . .

The discrepancies between the description of what Richard Kamler posted to our "google networking site" and what appears even now on your website are clear.  Anyone reading that proposal would conclude that "actual books were cut", and that "religious taboos were violated." 

The real tragedy here is that the NCAC could have helped to resolve this case.  This case could have served as the impetus to clarify important conceptual issues, to open the discussion of what it really means to work with communities which have laws, traditions and precepts which are different from mainstream society. 

With the understanding that the work in fact could not speak to this Community because of the religious "taboos,"  we thought, until we read the NCAC press release, that we were discussing the following questions:
   

-What obligation do we have to respect cultural groups with laws and traditions different from our own when we enter into a partnership or dialogue with them?

-What are the free speech rights of groups to construct artists' projects with specific parameters? 

The NCAC press release and blog, however, do not address philosophical issues. The wording serves to suppress the real issues by focusing on unverified facts, thereby recontextualizing the entire discussion.

Since December we have been asking how you could have had such incorrect and incomplete information about our exhibition.  Clearly there were gaps in communication.  It is quite possible that your source was someone who had information that was not provided to us. It is quite possible that this source assumed that the artist gave us this information. It is also quite possible that your source misunderstood how the artist came to us, or who we were, or what the exhibition was about.  Furthermore, it is possible that your source may have been misinformed about our motives and experience, including the fact that we were all artist-participants and all unpaid.

For more information, you might refer to our website. 

Our corrections to the NCAC blog are here:
Notes on the NCAC Press Release,
http://orchardstreetshul-artistsproject.org/NCAC-blog_facts.pdf
point by point disrepencies, in pdf format

letter to the NCAC January 29, 2010

January 29, 2010

I am writing to you as an artist and as the coordinator for the Cultural Heritage Artists Project of the Orchard Street Shul, concerning our recent experience of alleged censorship lodged publicly against us by the NCAC, resulting from our decision not to accept a work submitted by Richard Kamler. Charges of censorship are a serious matter, and one assumes that the NCAC, as a coalition of professional and civic organizations, does not make decisions casually and without due process. As a strong supporter of free speech, however, I am unable to reconcile my experience with the NCAC and the judgments against our artists’ collective with what I would like to believe is the usual practice of any body charged with public trust.

We are all, presumably, thoughtful people of conscience, so when decisions regarding the proper ethical course in any given situation are so radically different, this is usually an indication of a complex situation, perhaps even one which poses unexpected and novel questions. This particular case involved difficult conceptual issues that our Artistic Committee grappled with through several meetings and many hours of discussion. Our process of deliberation brought us to new insights, and we were (and remain) prepared to discuss the novel problems posed by new forms of Community Art and Cultural Heritage projects, in which artists create work out of a process involving more than just a singular personal vision.

Ultimately, we reluctantly concluded that Mr. Kamler’s multifaceted installation/performance work fell outside of the guidelines for our project, and our rejection of the work triggered the NCAC to raise the accusation of censorship. On learning of the pending announcement of the NCAC, and prior to the release of your statement, I initiated contact with the NCAC because I understood that one of the functions of the NCAC was to attempt resolution in cases of misunderstandings. I spoke personally with Svetlana Mintcheva, the program officer.

At the time I believed that she and I were having a conceptual and logistical discussion, focused on the inherent contradictions of Mr. Kamler’s proposed installation/performance, consisting of a new work developed specifically to engage the members of the particular community which was the object and subject of our exhibition and project.

Community Art and Cultural Heritage projects do present new challenges. To fully comprehend such conceptual challenges in any given situation, however, one must first begin with basic fact-checking: the call for participation, the guidelines for the project, the dates of review, the nature of the organization, etc. And then, most certainly, the next step is verification of the actual facts, charges and statements in a complaint of censorship.

I was therefore stunned to read the statements in the NCAC press release and blog presenting not only a simplified version of the case surrounding Richard Kamler’s work, with no mention of the inherent contradictions, but a litany of “facts” so inaccurate that none of us involved with assessing Mr. Kamler’s proposal recognized any such statements.

We were most disturbed by the unattributed quotations in the NCAC statements that Mr. Kamler’s work was not accepted because it “might offend somebody” or that the decision was made out of “fear some members of the community may be offended.” Although we recognized that Mr. Kamler’s work might have elements of controversy, no member of our Artistic Committee ever made such general statements concerning lack of respect or offense without a direct link, in the very same sentence, to the community which was the object and subject of our Cultural Heritage Artists Project.

Because there is no attribution and we have no proof of where they might have originated, we must challenge these statements and the NCAC assertion that they reflect our position. They do not, and we do not believe these statements were made by anyone involved with our decision-making. Consequently we raise the entire question of with whom the NCAC spoke to get its “facts” about this disagreement.

It is for this reason that on December 30, 2009 I asked for a copy of the complaint against the Cultural Heritage Artists Project. This was motivated not only by the disputed statements of the NCAC, but by posted comments on the internet containing inaccurate “facts” and perceptions about the project, the organization, and oddly, my own professional accomplishments. I was quite surprised by Ms. Mintcheva’s January 7 reply to my inquiry. Apparently the NCAC can make public accusations of censorship against organizations, but is not obligated to inform the accused of where the complaint originated, or its content. Such secrecy seems to belie the very principles of a free speech organization.

I also found it disturbing that the NCAC, after assuring me that its statement to the press would be released on November 30, changed the date, without notice to me, to ten days earlier, so as to coincide with a release by the artist Richard Kamler. The artist certainly has a right to communicate his position to the press, but the NCAC, by linking its statement to his, gave credibility to additional misperceptions of the situation.

Honest misunderstandings may have formed the basis for what amounts to misrepresentation, but this is precisely why in our free society we cherish the right of open discourse, including the rights of defendants to be given the opportunity to refute supposed facts that inform decisions.

What is perhaps most disturbing is the NCAC’s apparent lack of interest in a process that would insure fact- checking and fact-correction in matters of dispute. It is my hope that this current exchange might lead the NCAC to collaborate with its professional affiliates to develop a policy for due process, as a policy that would be made available to the public. Consistent due process would not only lead to fairer assessments, but would also encourage dialogue around the unusual conceptual challenges posed by situations that are layered in their complexity. This would be a positive step towards enabling us to work together to protect the free exchange of ideas in our ever-changing cultural landscape.

Sincerely,
Cynthia Beth Rubin
Artist and Coordinator
The Cultural Heritage Artists Project of the Orchard Street Shul

The reply to this letter finally came after 6 weeks, after numerous calls to the NCAC requesting a reply.  That letter did not answer the question of due process or how the NCAC gets its "facts"

Who we are, Why we posting

The Cultural Heritage Artists Project is a group of artists who first came together in the summer of 2008, in response to a call to create an art exhibition in partnership with a state-designated historic site in New Haven, Connecticut.  As artists committed to working together collectively to develop new models of artist - community projects, the small group of us who met quickly decided that rather than produce an ordinary exhibition, we would move into largely uncharted territory by working together to create new works in response to the environment, history, or architecture of this site.  We wanted to tell its story, and to encourage others to experience the magical transformation of information through aesthetic interpretation that makes art compelling and relevant in our world today.

That our community partner was a historic Shul, still operating under by-laws which designated it a traditionally Orthodox Synagogue, was a piece of the project that posed interesting conceptual challenges that were unanticipated by those of us who were quite simply intrigued and inspired by a historic building that so clearly bore echoes of the "coming to America" immigration waves of the early 20th century.  There was history in those walls, history in the worn down steps, and history in the nearly abandoned sanctuary that had once been a vibrant center of community life. 

We were, for the most part, tourists in this site.  We came to it not as members of the Orchard Street Shul, and we came to it from mixed religious and ethnic backgrounds.  As our group grew, we came to include children and grandchildren of those who had grown up in the area attending Italian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, as well one artist who is descended from the Shul founders and still an active member.  And of course most of us came from elsewhere, from other cities, other countries, other religious backgrounds or no religious backgrounds or religious orientations that changed over the years.  

Committed open-minded community orientated artists that we were, we decided to issue an Open Call to include other artists who were interested in this site.  Our call was simple, but we did realize that while history and community in the most general sense may have brought us into this project, we were in fact dealing with a historic site that belonged to others, and knew that we needed to respect this community.  

And then we plunged ahead.  We forged a relationship with an initially bewildered Jewish Historical Society, who were unaware of artists-as-researchers.  We scanned, photographed, interviewed, and filmed.  Our numbers grew as artists continued to apply, hearing from others about the wonderful project, the wonderful opportunity to make work for a purposeful exhibition.  We were going to turn the art world inside out.  We were not waiting for a curator to come to our studio and find that we had caught the wave that was the next big thing, we were going to make the next big thing and make the wave with it!  We were joined by scholars who came to write about the history, to put the art and the building in context.  We joined by computer science researchers who were going to push the art of 3D digital imaging forward by making a digital record of our site.  

We were joined by so many that the project began to be too much for our total volunteer force, but we kept going, asking every artist to help.  We found a new way to keep  track of artist's works in progress and to encourage community across distances by creating a google website that required a password for participation.  We asked any artist who could to join a committee, contribute advice, contribute services from graphic design to writing texts to picking people up at the train station.

And we pulled it off!  For the 500 people who lined up on a cold December day to storm the doors of one of the largest and most diverse exhibitions that had ever been created on a shoe-string from pure inspiration, this show and book were a fabulous success.

Read the Call for Participation below, and stay tuned for the next phase - the part where one artist misunderstood all of the above, and managed to so convince others that his misunderstanding was the whole story that we can only correct the perceptions through the blogs!

Artists working in all media are invited to participate in a Cultural Heritage Project based in New Haven, Connecticut.

The Orchard Street Shul Artists Project offers artists an opportunity to engage with a historic synagogue that is largely as it was when it was opened in 1927. This is a rare opportunity for artists to visit the site before renovation takes place -- with the marks of history still clearly evident.  The project is not a simple exhibition of existing work; you must make new work responding to the environment, history, or architecture of the Orchard Street Shul. All media will be considered, and you may determine the format of your participation as the project progresses.  In keeping with the intention of celebrating heritage and cultural diversity, we ask that all work produced for this project maintain respect for the synagogue as the spiritual home of an ongoing segment of New Haven's Jewish Community, and as the legacy of past generations.  Artists will be expected to visit the site at least once prior to producing work.

Artists will have access to ground-breaking 3D scans of the Shul, as researchers at Yale University will be working on the project to produce a virtual replica of the site. Engaging with the 3D data offers artists the opportunity to be at the forefront of research in 3D imaging. Artists working in non-digital media may visit the Orchard Street Shul for on-site sessions of drawing, painting, etc. Artists may also arrange for access to historical photographs in the collection of the Jewish Historical Society.

Artists may apply to be part of the exhibition by sending an email expressing interest. . . . Please include a link to a web site or blog with examples of previous work, and a c.v. In your email, tell us why this project interests you. There is no formal application form. After acceptance, you will have several months to complete your contribution to the project. 

For more information visit:
(original website address given here - since changed... will reconstitute and post soon!)

The project is coordinated by Cynthia Beth Rubin, a New Haven based new media artist, working with a team of artists and community members.