On Saturday Aug. 13, will be facilitating a socially engaged project Mud Drawings: Reflecting On Our Grief as part of DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, inspired by one of the projects I made last summer for Collaborating with my five year old son while social distancing. Participants will be invited to collect natural materials from the site, make drawing tools with those materials, and then use their handmade tools make a drawing with mud dug from the hole. Participants can make mud drawings independently throughout the week.
Press Release:
DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, a project by Cara Levine, invites the audience to experience a container for their grief and mourning following over a year of collective loss. The initiative was created as a collaborative project supported by American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity (IJC), a network designed to elevate Jewish artists based in Los Angeles.
During a week of activities at the Shalom Institute, nestled in the breathtaking Malibu mountains, Levine will dig a large-scale hole in the ground, inviting various communities and audience members to join her. Artists and community leaders will offer a schedule of activities in and around the site, ranging from collective drawings to live performances, audio recordings, and community rituals.
Please follow this link for the full schedule and registration.
The weeklong duration reflects the symbolic period of shiva, or seven days of mourning in the Jewish tradition. Culminating on the second Saturday, participants will fill the hole with water and perform a ritual cleansing, or mikveh, before refilling the hole with its original dirt, and planting native seeds to complete the cycle for renewal.
This will be a collective space to hold and process some of the grief of the year, with rituals and performances inspired by different faiths, histories, and viewpoints. As the pandemic era transforms and yet holds great uncertainties, it is important to mark this moment. While Levine continuously digs on a daily basis and invites the public to deepen the hole, she has invited artists Adrienne Adar, Dorit Cypis, Faye Driscoll, Ekaette Ekong, Sonia Guiñansca, Asher Hartman, Michele Jaquis, and hannah rubin to make or lead new work on site.
Alan Salazar, a local Chumash tribal leader, and storyteller will launch the project with a blessing on August 14. Cantor Chayim Frenkel from Kehillat Israel will perform a Havdalah service on Tuesday, August 17. The closing Day on August 21, will be marked by a group celebration and live performances.
The Shalom Institute campus was devastated by the Woolsey Fire of 2018. The leaders and community from SI welcome DIG as part of their grief process over the loss and sacred transition taking place on their land.
This project is made with additional support from American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity, Cantor Chayim Frenkel, and the Shalom Institute.
The Institute for Jewish Creativity (IJC) is a proud project of American Jewish University (AJU). The IJC cultivates a network of local Jewish artists, and supports a contemporary, vibrant, Jewish cultural landscape in Los Angeles and beyond, in the spirit of AJU’s mission to elevate individuals and communities through Jewish wisdom and creativity.
