works
overview
The works in this exhibition refer to transgenerational (or postmemory) trauma – recalling stories and histories shared through family stories, but not directly experienced. They reflect the artists’ own reactions and stories stemming from this heritage and their attempts to emotionally reconnect with lost family members, particularly their female predecessors.
In The Fate of Things: Memory Objects and Art, two Australian-born artists, Anne Zahalka and Sylvia Griffin, remember their families’ Holocaust experiences through inherited objects, remnants and relics. For this exhibition, the artists undertook a process of self-discovery by imbuing tangible symbols of their family histories with personal interpretations of their second-hand traumatic memories. Through video, photography, assemblage, sculpture and textiles, the artists memorialised lost family members never met, particularly female predecessors, to trace who they are today and how their characters have been formed over time.