An art installation, a meeting

The exhibitions created by secondary school classes will accompany and echo to a large-scale installation consisting of five hundred photographs grandeur nature, each the size of a small woman, first to be presented in Telz itself. Where photographs cannot be obtained, a blank image will appear. The installation will be filmed in the city of Telz, and will last 24 hours. Some of the portraits will bear a name when the face has been identified. Other posters will bear a name but no portrait, or a portrait without name. Some may display a small amount of information. In the summer 2008 a survivor was able to recognize a girl who had the most remarkable handwriting in her class, but she could not remember her name. The father of the author identified and named a young girl with a long braid: he used to wait for her outside the school and try … to pull her braids. A lot of the portraits – if not the majority - will probably be blank. The core of this exhibit will consist of a physical presence of 500 posters of the size of human bodies, which will stand in the public space in what was once their hometown. Their presence intends to be more than a symbol, it invites to a human and personal experience. During 24 hours, the population of Telsiai, prepared through the work of their children, will have a chance to meet the gaze of these young lives, in the streets where they used to walk chatting Hebrew among themselves, as if it was the most natural thing to do. Young forever, the girls and women have brought with them the memories of their schools, of their teachers, their dreams, their pride and their ambitions, their creativity and their fruitfulness. But meeting them during these 24 hours, the people of Telsiai will be able to see the expression of these beautiful faces when it comes to the Jewish past of their city. They will be able to ponder about the loss of these lives.

We don’t have the power to revive the young girls, nor to make them speak, neither – and that is essential – to speak in their name, but we can drive them out of the anonymous night of their death.

In the future, the creations/exhibitions of the classes will travel with the installation and /or the video of the encounter between the present population of Telsiai and the Jewish young girls and women of Telz. The installation of the 500 portraits can be presented in the outside spaces of museums or in public spaces. It is important though that in smaller institutions/places where 500 portraits cannot be displayed, the video of the 24 hours installation can complement the class exhibitions.

Next: Learning from them