When Slavery Hits Home
Slavery has been a horrible part of human history for many thousands of years. Using the holiday of Passover as the basis for a community exhibition and conversation at the Mayerson JCC in Cincinnati, Ohio, we wanted to explore slavery through a Jewish lens and illustrate how it still impacts so many millions of people to this day. The idea was to challenge visitors to ask themselves, as long as slavery still exists, can we as Jews truly be free?
Our task was to design a powerful image that was artful and thought-provoking and open to interpretation. But how do you capture the essence of thousands of years of inhumanity in one image? Birds immediately came to mind as a way to symbolize freedom, but we wanted to avoid being cliché. As a result, we created an abstract image based on that theme that asks viewers to decide for themselves if it represents the loss of freedom, or the hope that it is still within reach?
This exhibition required dozens of print and digital pieces, including advertisements, mailers, posters, wall murals, programs, signage, invitations, Passover Seder supplements and more and helped attract thousands of visitors of every age.
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