Who Am I: More than Meets the Eye

 Hi, I'm Leah K-R, and I have been a TAC at the CJM for about three months now. We have recently dabbled in events for the Contemporary Jewish Museum in a collaboration with the interns from The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD). We joined forces to have an art crawl with both museums. One stop focuses on performances related to the Maira Kalman exhibit here at the CJM. The other stop of the event is a reception for our (the interns') exhibit at MoAD.

The exhibit explores our ideas about identity and diaspora, so we titled it 
"Who Am I: More than Meets the Eye". 

Both museums held workshops for the interns with CJM educator and professional painter, Jen Ewing. During our workshop we looked at and discussed the Kalman exhibit and then painted self portraits that express who we are as realistically or abstractly as we wanted.


Both museums also did photography projects (ours was with SF Camerawork and included a workshop with First Exposures mentors and mentees) in which all interns created self portrait photos.









 The third component of the exhibit was that interns from both the CJM and MoAD got together and interviewed each other around questions related to identity and culture, diaspora and family. The recorded conversations all started with an explanation of what our names mean - literally or symbolically and it was really interesting to talk about this and hear what others had to say. These recordings are going to be part of the exhibit as well.

We've had multiple meetings with the MoAD interns and learned so much from each other. We were able to hear so many different and creative perspectives that might not have been considered had we not collaborated. We have all separated into groups focusing on curating, food, tech and outreach. We are all doing a lot to prepare for the exhibit opening on 10.10.10. I have been working on outreach with my fellow interns Flo, Zach, Olivia and Lauren. Lauren has put a great magnitude of work into creating the postcards for the exhibit. They look great and the rest of the outreach is trying to figure out effective and creative ways to spread the word about our event. Though it is challenging trying to coordinate meetings and particular tasks, it is fascinating to be working in such a professional yet artistic setting. I am excited to continue working on this project, and anticipating the turnout. I hope it goes well, and I am looking forward to doing similar tasks in the future and seeing improvement.

Shalom friends, and I hope to see you at our exhibition!

Leah