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 social practice artist, Torah scribe, curator and chutzpanit. Her work often rests in the borderlands where tradition and change meet allowing for new forms to emerge. Shoshana’s work takes shape as large and small scale collaborations with public and private audiences in a wide array of contexts from prisons, to houses of faith, museums, schools, rural fields or rivers. These socially engaged encounters are sculpted by brave and sometimes whimsical collaborations perhaps through a conversation, a blind-folded game, a silent canoe ride, an urban walk, a civics test, a shared meal or more. Shoshana brings her studies in studio arts, dance, anthropology, education, facilitation, meditation and spiritual leadership to her work.
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 in 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 Hebrew 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 Creative Director of Co/Lab: ReImagine Jewish where she co-founded and directs Art/Lab, a contemporary Jewish artists fellowship. 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.
After 20 years in Israel, Shoshana now resides with her partner and children and their rescue dog in the Dyer Street Shtetl, a NorthEast Portland, OR intentional community. There she co-directs and co-curates the Gug(g)enheim Portland in their family residence. Shoshana speaks, teaches and consults internationally.
Shoshana is grateful to have had her work supported by the Covenant Foundation, CANVAS, The Greater Greensboro Arts Council, 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