MotherLand
This project, "MotherLand," was spurred by my fading understanding of how the Holocaust shaped my childhood, and our human experience. It started as I was tracing the footsteps of my family, which led me to photograph the struggling Jewish communities of the former Soviet Union, particularly Poland, and more recently, Ukraine. There, faith, history, horror, toil and the landscape blend into one.
MotherLand, is a photographic exploration of the continuing impact that the Holocaust and the subsequent Soviet Regime had on the remaining Jewish population of Eastern Europe. The work explores the survival of a culture following a catastrophic event, where the majority of a population disappeared. It focuses on the aging child Survivors of the Holocaust, who are entering their seventies, living in small Shtetls of Eastern Europe, isolated from their lost ancestors and from their émigré descendents. Once the inhabitants of these small communities are gone, Jewish life in the Shtetl will cease to exist.
The images I am making start as I place myself within the Jewish cultural landscape. They draw upon the collective loss and my own personal loss. The resulting image is neither a document of what is in front of my lens, nor is it simplistic portrayal of my own emotions. It is hybrid born of elements, the place, the people, my experience, the history that surrounds me and the loss that echoes across the landscape.
The photographs are made with black and white film, unenlarged negatives, contact printed in platinum/palladium, size ranging from 6cmx12cm, 6cmx18cm and 4x5 inches.
