From Jeffrey Shandler (and Stuart Schear), after the YIVO event featuring Handshouse Studio and the Gwoździec wooden synagogue project. Many many thanks for the kind words! Here is the trailer: vimeo/107332820 And, the kind words: Stuart and I went to the YIVO program on the Handshouse Studio’s recreation of the Gwozdziec wooden synagogue ceiling and bimah last night. It was great to hear Rick and Laura Brown talk about the Handshouse approach to learning about the past through recreating an historical object with period tools, materials, and techniques. The Browns’ enthusiasm for this particular project and the excitement they have inspired in so many others is impressive and moving. Irene Pletka also spoke passionately about the Gwozdziec project, and your strategic role in bringing it to the MHPJ was highlighted. It was great to see pictures of you and Irene in hardhats at Sanok when they finished making the roof timbers. The Gwozdziec project is so smartly conceived and emotionally engaging, it presents the artistry of these synagogues--even to people who already know about them--in an especially exciting way. Learning about this project will make people want to go to Warsaw and see it for themselves, to experience standing underneath the ceiling and looking at the exposed timbers above it—something only the people who built the original synagogue would have had the chance to see. For me, the view of the timbers exemplifies what is special about this project—its focus on the process, on what is behind (or in this case, above) the finished product, and on the close interrelation of Polish and Jewish material culture (and, therefore, of Poles and Jews as neighbors). Equally important is how this project exemplifies the making of new relationships with Polish Jewish culture. As much as this project looks to recreating something from the past, it is making something new—a different, innovative cultural future for Jews and Poles and others drawn to this synagogue and all that it invokes.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:17:13 +0000