Devora Neumark

Addressing the role that house-beautification plays for individuals coming to terms with the traumas associated with involuntary dislocation, Drawn to Beauty: The Practice of House-Beautification as Homemaking amongst the Forcibly Displaced situates aesthetics as critically important to the emerging interdisciplinary framework articulating the conditions for remaking home in the aftermath of domicide, environmental disaster, and other instances of home's destruction. Culled from a wide array of sources including personal experience, housing theory, an analysis of third realm beauty, trauma studies and my extensive research-creation practice, this text proposes that attention paid to the daily manipulation of home's things and objects is a particularly active site for (be)coming home anew.

This pamphlet presents the activities and performances from the fifth instalment of the Mois de la performance, which focused on the theme of the city and the status of women in urban space. The work of the eight performers (three of whom came from Los Angeles in the context of an exchange) is documented by means of pictures, artists’ statements and biographical notes. Texts in English and French.

"This was a street intervention in two parts: memorial stones and posters as an unofficial response to Montreal's 350 anniversary celebration-- putting into question the issue of lost or silenced memorialization and the claiming of history(ies) Of the nine original markers placed in grassy areas around the City of Montreal, two that I am aware of are still in place." --Publisher's websit

... DEVORA NEUMARK Goddard College (Vermont), Concordia University (Montreal), Engrenage Noir / LEVIER (Montreal) Performing aesthetics, performing politics: 'The Jewish Home Beautiful' ... Page 2. Devora Neumark 38 My history with home has been a troubled one.1 ...

A publication to accompany two series of installations by Markiewicz: “Promise” (1999) and “Places to Remember” (2001). In her essay on the artist’s work, Pollock deals with the paradoxical nature of making art after Auschwitz. Her analysis of aesthetic practices concerned with the Holocaust, centres on concepts of memory and oblivion/forgetting, as well as psychoanalytic theories of trauma, otherness and witnessing. Neumark’s text focuses on issues of trauma, memory and healing within art making and Jewish culture. Numerous references are made to the Biblical story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt. The catalogue also includes a brief text by the artist, which focuses on issues of place, memory and Jewish identity. List of illustrations. Biographical notes. 62 bibl. ref.

L’oralité (storytelling) en tant que pratique artistique dans le Québec d’aujourd’hui allant à l’encontre des exposés narratifs publics courants, le projet Picking Up the Storylines (« Reprendre le fil de la trame narrative ») interroge les paramètres et les résultats du processus public de la storytelling. La Charte des valeurs québécoises et la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation du Canada y sont relues en parallèle avec le Scar Project (projet Cicatrice), de Nadia Myre, et le travail du Living History Ensemble, dans le contexte du projet Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide and Human Rights Violations (« Récits de vie de Montréalais et Montréalaises déplacées par la guerre, le génocide et les violations des droits de la personne »). Une telle comparaison appelle une analyse critique en vue de déterminer quand et comment les récits supprimés, ignorés et inédits de personnes marginalisées peuvent contribuer à l’instauration de politiques libératoires.

Abstract Addressing the role that house-beautification plays for individuals coming to terms with the traumas associated with involuntary dislocation, Drawn to Beauty: The Practice of House-Beautification as Homemaking amongst the Forcibly Displaced situates aesthetics as critically important to the emerging interdisciplinary framework articulating the conditions for remaking home in the aftermath of domicide, environmental disaster, and other instances of home’s destruction. Culled from a wide array of sources including personal experience, housing theory, an analysis of third realm beauty, trauma studies and my extensive research-creation practice, this text proposes that attention paid to the daily manipulation of home’s things and objects is a particularly active site for (be)coming home anew.

... DEVORA NEUMARK Goddard College (Vermont), Concordia University (Montreal), Engrenage Noir / LEVIER (Montreal) Performing aesthetics, performing politics: 'The Jewish Home Beautiful' ... Page 2. Devora Neumark 38 My history with home has been a troubled one.1 ...

A publication to accompany two series of installations by Markiewicz: “Promise” (1999) and “Places to Remember” (2001). In her essay on the artist’s work, Pollock deals with the paradoxical nature of making art after Auschwitz. Her analysis of aesthetic practices concerned with the Holocaust, centres on concepts of memory and oblivion/forgetting, as well as psychoanalytic theories of trauma, otherness and witnessing. Neumark’s text focuses on issues of trauma, memory and healing within art making and Jewish culture. Numerous references are made to the Biblical story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt. The catalogue also includes a brief text by the artist, which focuses on issues of place, memory and Jewish identity. List of illustrations. Biographical notes. 62 bibl. ref.

This thesis examines the relationship between forced dislocation and home beautification practices. It is the result of an interdisciplinary approach and an arts-based methodology. At the heart of this work lies a double-interrogation: how is the daily appreciation and manipulation of one’s belongings crucial to the experience of creating home anew following forced dislocation and in what ways do these home beautification practices and the repetition of stylized narratives—and other personal and cultural stories of home and its loss—contribute to the perpetuation of violence in places where home is contested? Home’s properties, associations, and manifestations (or lack-there-of) in the political, cultural, emotional, and embodied realms are investigated using a wide array of materials, including the presentation and analysis of a series of live art events that I convened within the tenure of this cycle of research-creation, historical community pageants, personal stories of home and...

... English language. doi: 10.1386/peet.1.1.69_1 KEYWORDS art community performance displacement beauty wellness home DEVORA NEUMARK Goddard College (Vermont) and Concordia University (Montreal) Close proximity ... Page 2. Devora Neumark 70 ...

Catalogue documenting 11 artworks (sculptures, paintings, works on paper, installations and photographs) commissioned for the Montreal Jewish Community Campus. Commentaries on the works by the artists note connections to Jewish cultural references. Includes epigraphical citations from Genesis, Leviticus, the Mishnah, Siddur and Talmud. Brief statements by the artists. Texts in French and English. Biographical notes.

"Exploring the nature of community arts covering topics as wide-ranging as community arts practice itself, this publication takes a critical look at individual practice, multi-culturalism and approaches to working with marginalized communities as well as building knowledge of the roots of community art as grounded in cultural traditions, protest movements, social development and celebrating spirit." -- p [4] of cover.

This artist's book documents and completes a project in two parts (works and interventions by 12 artists within a community, and a series of monthly exchanges), initiated by DARE-DARE to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Meilleur recounts (in French only) the origins of "Immixtion" and discusses its influence on the centre's orientation, while Neumark elaborates on the complexity of notions such as communication, identity and community. Exchanges transcribed in their original language. 3 bibl. ref.

As a complement to reflections brought forth during a conference on interdisciplinary practices in the arts, this publication gathers essays from fifteen practitioners (artists, theoreticians, historians and professors) who examine the topic according to their field of interest. In his introduction, Laramee observes that despite the diversity of opinions, these essays provide some hypotheses on the future of art and conventional art disciplines, and attempt to demonstrate the areas of influence and action of hybrid disciplines in art and society. Texts in French and English with abstracts in the other language. Biographical notes. 25 bibl. ref.

Culled in part from nearly 20 hours of audio recordings of the author's father's experiences with displacement prior to, during, and after World War II, this paper explores some conditions that make it possible for people to feel at home in the aftermath of forced dislocation and the ways in which storytelling can help break the subsequent cycle of violence that can emerge from such an experience. The author's father's story is interspersed with her own narrative voice as well as a theoretical exploration of what is at stake for the storyteller and for those who bear witness to the stories told of experience at the nexus between memory and history.

"Extraits de la quatrième de couverture Célébrer la collaboration communique les joies et les défis rencontrés dans la cocréation en art communautaire et activiste humaniste, tout en faisant progresser notre compréhension de ses enjeux éthiques et esthétiques. Sans minimiser les risques et les pièges propres au processus collaboratif, Célébrer la collaboration suggère que la cocréativité est un geste d’autonomisation personnelle et d’intervention civique vers une coexistence plus responsable et équitable au Québec et ailleurs. Négocier les processus décisionnels et la répartition des ressources dans un projet d’art collectif – et ce, de façon à ce que les différentes voix soient entendues – implique d’aborder, avec imagination, les jeux de pouvoir et les dynamiques relationnelles. Voilà une démarche qui, potentiellement, mène vers la transformation personnelle et l’action politique subversive. Premier ouvrage bilingue à aborder aussi exhaustivement la problématique de l’art communautaire et humaniste activiste, Célébrer la collaboration réunit des témoignages expérientiels et des analyses théoriques dont les textes de : Kim Anderson, Jorge Goia, Petra Kuppers, Vivian Labrie, Louise Lachapelle, Ève Lamoureux, Nisha Sajnani et Bob W. White. La compilation DVD Documenter la collaboration (insérée au centre de ce livre), les entrevues, descriptions de projets et essais présentent des informations pratiques et invitent à la réflexion critique sur la manière dont l’art collaboratif développe et soutient des communautés saines, même en ce temps caractérisé par l’individualisme et les inégalités systémiques globales. *** Excerpts from the Back Cover Affirming Collaboration communicates the joys and challenges encountered in co-creative community and humanist activist art while advancing our understanding of its ethics and aesthetics. Without minimizing the risks and pitfalls related to the collaborative process, Affirming Collaboration proposes that co-creativity is a gesture of personal empowerment and civic intervention that contributes to a more responsible and equitable co-existence in Québec and elsewhere. Negotiating decision-making and the allocation of resources within a collective art project – in such a way that the different voices are heard – involves dealing imaginatively with power and relational dynamics. Potentially, this leads to personal transformation and subversive political agency. The first bilingual publication to go into such depths about the problematics of community and humanist activist art, Affirming Collaboration brings together experiential testimony and theoretical analysis with texts by Kim Anderson, Jorge Goia, Petra Kuppers, Vivian Labrie, Louise Lachapelle, Ève Lamoureux, Nisha Sajnani and Bob W. White. In addition to the DVD compilation entitled Documenting Collaboration (inserted in the centre of this book), interviews, project descriptions and essays convey practical information and invite critical reflection about how collaborative art develops and sustains healthy communities, even in this time of rampant individualism and global systemic inequalities."

. *** Excerpts from the Back Cover Affirming Collaboration communicates the joys and challenges encountered in co-creative community and humanist activist art while advancing our understanding of its ethics and aesthetics. Without minimizing the risks and pitfalls related to the collaborative process, Affirming Collaboration proposes that co-creativity is a gesture of personal empowerment and civic intervention that contributes to a more responsible and equitable co-existence in Québec and elsewhere. Negotiating decision-making and the allocation of resources within a collective art project – in such a way that the different voices are heard – involves dealing imaginatively with power and relational dynamics. Potentially, this leads to personal transformation and subversive political agency. The first bilingual publication to go into such depths about the problematics of community and humanist activist art, Affirming Collaboration brings together experiential testimony and theoretical analysis with texts by Kim Anderson, Jorge Goia, Petra Kuppers, Vivian Labrie, Louise Lachapelle, Ève Lamoureux, Nisha Sajnani and Bob W. White. In addition to the DVD compilation entitled Documenting Collaboration (inserted in the centre of this book), interviews, project descriptions and essays convey practical information and invite critical reflection about how collaborative art develops and sustains healthy communities, even in this time of rampant individualism and global systemic inequalities."