Artist Talk | Susan Hiller

How does a contemporary artist represent the lost history of German-Jewish life? Susan Hiller, a film and video artist, spent three years photographing more than 300 street signs all over Germany whose names refer to a previous Jewish presence. The result, the exhibition "The J.Street Project", uses the apparent banality of street names to explore unexpected ways that landscape can memorialize a people's history.

Hiller, who lives in London, took visitors through the exhibition, explaining both her artistic process and her unique approach to connecting landscape and history.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Susan Hiller
• German
• Jewish
• street sign
• museum
• the CJM
• artist
• photography
• Contemporary Jewish Museum

[martycrow]

Just seen it at the Tate. A accidental disorientation, then a profound question, leading to a 'simple' enquiry/inquiry [pun intended], painstaking research, time and more time, an innocuous method of presentation, results in a mesmeric meditation that I found profoundly moving. (Enough 'm' s already!).

I had a similar feeling in Krakow in the 'Jewish quarter' ....

[ridiculoushoghoppers]

that was a great work of art

[debfiller]

Interesting to commemorate German's mostly lost Jewish community in such a unique way. It answers a few questions for me. I have found the Germans very willing, on the whole, to deal with the issue of memory and wanting to move on towards the future. The only way to bury the past and move towards the future is to DEAL with it by naming it. I believe in forgiving, but of course we must never forget. In the Presence of Absence.