Learn more about the arc of Shoshana’s work the past 25 years through the lens of Jewish identity, Jewish material culture, feminism, and the re-insertion of the female body into sacred (and mundane) Jewish space. Some artworks spoken about here include performative work as a Torah scribe, sustainable parchment making, US citizenship + art intervention and the making of the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum. Grab a chair and a cup of tea and enjoy this artist talk with the Jewish Art Salon, filmed June 2020.
Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem | שושנה גוגנהיים קדם is an American/Israeli interdisciplinary artist, Torah scribe, curator and chutzpanit. She reimagines rituals and sacred objects, primarily but not solely, Jewish ones, and reinserts them, with new forms, into familiar contexts. Her large scale collaborations engage institutional critique as a practice of new imaginaries while redistributing agency to the public domain, often through publicly generated solutions.
Shoshana was one of the first women in modern times to train and practice as a Torah scribe. She led the scribing of two Torah scrolls written collectively and exclusively by women. Her scribal work inspired her international Jewish women artists collaboration, Women of the Book, launched with the Jerusalem Biennale 2015 and acquired as a limited edition print set by the Yale University Arts Library Collection and other private collectors. Today her work as a scribe manifests through Or Hadash | עור חדש , an art in(ter)vention into the contemporary parchment making industry, offering an alternative to the current reliance on industrial agriculture and re-turning it to the land, the people, and the animals they tend.
Shoshana is the Co-Founder and Director of Art/Lab a Contemporary Jewish Artists Fellowship in Portland, OR. She is the founding Artist and Co-Curator of the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum and its Social Practice Institute for Southern Jewish Artists in Greensboro, NC. Shoshana lives with her partner and children and their three chickens, two rabbits and rescue dog in a NE neighborhood of Portland, OR where she directs and curates the Gugenheim Portland situated in their family residence. Shoshana speaks, teaches and consults internationally.
Shoshana is grateful to have had her work supported by the Covenant Foundation, The Jewish Federation of Greensboro, NC, The University of NC Jewish Studies Department, the Oregon Arts Commission, The Ford Family Foundation, the Regional Arts and Culture Council (Portland, OR), Targum Shlishi, The Hadassah Brandeis Institute, The Eugene and Estelle Ferkauf Foundation, The Eicholz Foundation, The Simon Benson Foundation, The Gottesman Foundation, the Zachs Family Foundation and many other private donors and institutions.
Contact: shoshana@shoshanagugenheim.com | CV