

Opening reception
SURVIVAL AND INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY:
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon
January 26, 2025 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Please join us for the opening event!
Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana is a unique and powerful exhibition that explores the role of art and creativity, bringing the past into the present by focusing on three generations of artists from the same family. Alice Lok Cahana (1929-2017) was a Holocaust survivor who pledged she would become an artist if she survived the war. Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, Alice’s oldest son, is a poet and survivor of a major stroke. Kitra Cahana, Ronnie’s daughter, is a filmmaker and photographer. This exhibition reveals how the tragedy of the Holocaust impacted multiple generations of a family and how each member transformed the destructive trauma of the Shoah into acts of intense creative accomplishment, taking their own path to provide a through-line to preserving the memories, culture, and identity of their shared family and the Jewish people.
Image above: Alice Lok Cahana, 1940-44 Triptych: right panel, 1984, Collection Ronnie and Michael Cahana, Inv. 052

Alice Lok Cahana, New Day III, c. 1980, Collection Ronnie and Michael Cahana, Inv. 078

Kitra Cahana, Caravana Migrante: The Question of the Future (Portrait of Maryuri Celeste,18, from Santa Rosa, Honduras) Tijuana, Mexico, 2018
Survival and Intimations of Immortality is guest-curated by Ori Z Soltes. It was organized in cooperation with The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, New York. Funding has been generously provided by the Craig E. Wollner Exhibition Fund, the Arnold and Augusta Newman Photography Fund, and the Judy Margles Education and Culture Fund