MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program
Born in shadow of the Shoah, the stories about home repeatedly told within the culture of my youth emphasized the losses incurred during the Polish pogroms and the forced displacements of the Soviet Gulag era. In attempting to make sense of these intergenerational narratives, I have come to identify three separate yet interconnected loci where home is imagined and experienced: within the body, amidst sentient relationships, and in association with place. At the center of this inquiry into the ontology of home is a series of reflections about home’s properties, associations and manifestations (or lack-there-of) in the political, cultural, emotional, and embodied realms.
Once the fracture of home becomes part of individual and communal history, how can a new connection to dwelling be cultivated and affirmed in wellness? This question is both pressing for me personally and I believe central to the ethos of the 21st century: My history is not very different from many peoples’ histories around the world whose internal sense of home has been fragmented and whose houses have been destroyed through domicide. To effectively catalyze and support wellness relative to forced dislocation is a question of some urgency as more than 22 million people are living as refugees or internally displaced persons.
Currently I am exploring the role that beauty can play in new productive and generative experiences of home through a series of live art collaborative events and academic inquiry using a variety of research methodologies including oral history, community performance, and photographic elicitation.
Community activism also continues to be a major focus in my life as co-director (with Johanne Chagnon) of the Engrenage Noir – LEVIER project whose aim is to stimulate dialogue about healthy interdependence and encourage artistic creation addressing the systemic causes of poverty while affirming diversity of ecosystems, human rights, and ethical responsibility.
In 2008 I had the opportunity to participate in several pan-Canadian and international events including the LIVE IN PUBLIC: The Art of Engagement conference in Vancouver, British Columbia; the Edmonton Cultural Capital Program, Community Arts Celebration in Edmonton, Alberta; the International Community Arts Festival hosted by the Community Art Lab in Rotterdam, Amsterdam; and the Genocide in Rwanda and the Reconstruction of Knowledge international conference in Kigali, Rwanda organized by the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center.
Recent texts of mine have been published in four books related to community performance and engaged artistic practice and a fifth article is about to appear in the inaugural issue of the journal Performing Ethos. Amongst the live art collaborative events I’ve been involved with recently are OF BLOOD, MARROW, AND BONE Bearing Witness: Stories of Survival, Loss and (not) Belonging with Lisa Ndejuru & Pauline Ngirumpatse, and the three-month long project with Deborah Margo called WHY SHOULD WE CRY? Lamentations in a Winter Garden hosted by Dare-Dare Centre de diffusion d'art multidisciplinaire.
Websites: www.devoraneumark.com, www.engrenagenoir.ca (LEVIER)
Educational Background: BFA with distinction in Studio Art, Concordia University.
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Devora Neumark, BFA