DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/PSB2-KD30
Defense Date
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Photography and Film
First Advisor
Justin James Reed
Second Advisor
Sasha Waters Freyer
Third Advisor
Hope Ginsburg
Fourth Advisor
David Weinfeld
Abstract
Jewish thought suggests that the memory of an action is as primary as the action itself. This is to say that when my hand is wounded, I remember other hands. I trace ache back to other aches - when my mother grabbed my wrist pulling me across the intersection, when my great-grandmother’s fingers went numb on the ship headed towards Cuba fleeing the Nazis, when Miriam’s palms enduringly poured water for the Hebrews throughout their desert journey - this is how the Jew is able to fathom an ache. Because no physical space is a given for the Jewish diaspora, time and the rituals that steep into it are centered as a mode of carrying on. The bloodline of a folktale, an object, a ritual, pulses through interpretation and enactment. In this work I explore notions of Jewish memory, narrative heirlooms, and image making; the works position themselves in the past as memories, in the present as stories being told, and in the future as actions to interpret and repeat. To encounter an image in this way is not only to ask what it feels like, but to ask: what does it remember like?
Rights
© Hannah Altman
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-18-2020
Included in
Art Practice Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Photography Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons