Measuring Mourning: A Ritual for Loss
This participatory presentation explores a recently-resurfaced Ashkenazi women’s tradition of feldmestn—the practice of measuring ancestors’ burial places with candlewick, later burnt for the living and the dead.
How can this two-century-old Eastern European Jewish tradition help us grapple with contemporary catastrophes, as well as old displacements, genocides, and assimilation? When we do not know where our people are buried, what do we measure? Brown will share some of her own art practice and conclude with an open-ended maker space. Participants will have an opportunity to work with materials, including wick, to measure and reflect.
Speaker Bio
Maia Brown (she/her) is a visual artist, Yiddish musician, writer, translator, and educator. Brown has a background in oral history and fine art, including a Watson Fellowship to study storytelling and advocacy in South Africa and the North of Ireland. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College. She is a dedicated student and teacher of her own tradition as well as the many ways people have reached out to each other across communities.
Brown lives in Seattle.