STAR WITNESS, 2020
Shortlisted for the Art of Unity Creative Award, 2023
Star Witness has been created to highlight the rise in 21st century global antisemitism. In-depth research has been carried out on the politics of Europe in the 1930s, the rise of Nazism, the Holocaust, and contemporary antisemitism.
Star of David cloth badges, which were used in Europe to isolate and denigrate individuals because of their religion, have been replicated using dyed and hand printed cotton, the 600 individual stars each representing 10,000 Jewish people who died in the camps. Stars also represent others who were targeted because of their beliefs or sexuality. Each one has been painstakingly hand stitched or printed with historical and contemporary research as well as personal stories of those who survived the devastation.
“Your work is a timely memorial and reminder of what can happen when latent hatreds are awakened.” Rochelle Popowitz, USA
There are gaps between some of the 600 stars in the installation. These represent the lost future generations of those murdered in the Holocaust.
Graffiti: 1938 in Germany & Austria, and globally 2005 - 2020
“Again I return to the bravery of your work, this is not something acquired from a weekend workshop on sewing techniques, this is a honed communication carried out not in paint or marble but in the empathetic medium of fabric.” Conceptual visual artist & lecturer
““I ask: Where is my family of nine? I am the only survivor.”
Benjamin Orenstein, 93, Holocaust Survivor
1 February 2019”
““Do I trust human nature? No, not with what is going on now.”
Tova Friedman, Holocaust Survivor
9 September 2016”
Information from Dr Jessica Grimm, relative of Christa Renate Bamberg :LINK
On 1 September 1941 it was announced that “all Jews living in Germany and Austria must wear the yellow Star of David on their clothing”. If this wasn’t humiliating enough they had to pay 10 pfennigs for them. The Nazi government paid 5 pfennigs for each star, making a profit out of other people’s degradation. The top-right coin is dated 1941 and is imprinted with a swastika.
““A beautiful blond woman was brought in with a noose attached to her neck and publicly hanged. Her crime? She was found walking in the street with her shawl covering her yellow star.” [1942]
Maja Zarchin in The Holocaust, The Jewish Tragedy, Martin Gilbert, 1987”
Shoah Memorial, Paris
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
““Permanent separation from one’s family was accomplished with the simple repetition of the two words ‘left’ and ‘right’. We got out of the train, and everything went so far: left, right, right, left. Men separated from women, children torn from the arms of mothers, the elderly chased like cattle. The sick, the disabled, were handled like packs of garbage.”
Leo Scheneiderman, in Holocaust Landscapes, Tim Cole, 2016”
THOSE SENT TO THE LEFT WERE GASSED
THOSE SENT TO THE RIGHT LIVED ANOTHER DAY
““B’nai Brith’s latest audit documented more than 2,200 antisemitic incidents last year.”
Canada
2020”
““It was only banter.”
Footballer
England, 2000”
““In-person harassment included Jewish people being spat on, verbally accosted, or mugged.”
Canada
2020 audit”
““I shared it without realising what it was.”
London
2020”
““They are the coronavirus.”
2020”
““I pray every Zionist gets coronavirus and dies from it.”
Twitter, 2020”
““I have a great deal of concern on what is going on in the world today”
Holocaust Survivor, Denmark
Surviving the Unthinkable, Brown University, USA
25 April 2013, YouTube”
““To prove you are liberal, to prove the fact that you are a modern human being, it is okay to be an anti-semite again?”
Holocaust Survivor, Romania
Surviving the Unthinkable, YouTube”
All research, sources and data have been documented
Installation measurement: 4m x 2m (dimensions variable)
Process: Dyeing, hand printing, hand stitch
Materials: Textile, silk thread, fabric dye, printing ink, printing block
Online:
Cultivate Presents Deflect, www.organthing.com (11 January 2022)
Fabricated? Solo Exhibition, London, England (1 October 2024 - 31 January 2025)
COMMENTS
This project is just incredible. You never cease to amaze in your pursuit of exposing things many would rather pretend don’t exist
This is what art can do: it can educate, lift buried emotions and bring healing
Horrifying and evocative that such horrible facts are so beautifully, lovingly and carefully stitched. So moving. Can’t be forgotten
Shocking. As always your work is so powerful and thought-provoking
I don’t understand antisemitism and never will. Thank you for continuing to raise awareness of these shameful events
How is it possible that some people think it’s acceptable to make fun of the Holocaust. So horrendous
Such beautiful but heart-breaking work
Looking through your work I felt emotionally and physically moved. You are the essence of an artist that has created work that goes beyond the bland and creates a visual dialogue that cuts straight to the soul
This work is powerful and much needed
Wonderful work. So important that our history is kept alive for future generations
Across Austria, schools take trips to the Mauthausen concentration camp and to teach children about the Nazi history. I will never forget standing in one of the gas chambers, almost smelling the fear of those poor people. I was ashamed of our nation, and we still haven’t learned our lesson
I remember cleaning some antisemitic graffiti off a bus a couple of years ago and being so shocked to see it, and that no one else had done anything to remove it
There are no words. Powerful forces in the world to promote hate and spread fear
Great that you are using your art to highlight this
A very difficult project but when completed will speak volumes
I find it so shocking that such ignorance or fear is still driving these prejudices
Shocking, sad, disgusting. We need to do better as a species
The behaviour in the 40s towards Jewish people is hard enough to comprehend, but how can people still have such awful thoughts in the present. I live in a bit of a sheltered bubble, and your art really brings these issues to my attention
It’s difficult not to be horrified and overwhelmed by these comments, and even more heart-breaking that they are so current