The High Holiday season is all about making intentional space for reflection, about considering our actions of the past year and ways we want to do better in the coming year. And in a moment of such global and social damage and upheaval in the world, we all have a lot of atoning and thinking to do.
This is the basic premise of artist Charlie Dov Schon’s “Be the Change” tzedakah box sculpture, “Collective Grief: Visibilizing and Holding Our Shared Sorrow.”
Hanging from pegs across the gray-blue box are handmade fabric amulets. Amulets have a long history in the Jewish tradition as magical objects that are thought to hold protection powers. Reclaiming this little-known tradition, Charlie has employed amulets across multiple projects as a means to explore issues of rights and justice.
The amulets on “Collective Grief” have each been created by Charlie in dialogue with friends, family and community. Filled out anonymously, a four-question Google form drives the shape and design of each fabric amulet, correlating to these four questions:
- At what scale is your grief manifesting most?
- Who/what do you look to for support first when you are grieving?
- What do you need from your community when you grieve?
- What emotion, to you, feels most like the opposite of grief?
These questions prompt us to think. To consider what is weighing most on us and our world—not to despair, but to make space for peace and to empower us to push forward and make the change we wish to see in the world.
Charlie sees her role in this piece as the vehicle to help stitch together the many forms of grief we all hold, and to visibilize the scale and magnitude of this pain. She hopes that we will all participate and submit our own responses so the piece can grow to represent our community.
As we approach Yom Kippur and I consider how I want to be inscribed in the Book of Life, Charlie’s amulets give me a physical space to engage. Join me in adding to this piece. Fill out the (anonymous) Google form here and she will create an amulet that represents you.
“Be the Change” is on display in The Fenway through Oct. 24 and then will tour the Greater Boston area.
This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here. MORE
