“Trauma, Memory and Art”
An interdisciplinary virtual conference
with Ori Z. Soltes, Larry R. Squire,
Natan P.F. Kellermann and Eva Fogelman

1014 - space for ideas 1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States

WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. In this interdisciplinary conference, four experts discuss the transmission of Holocaust trauma and memory against the backdrop of art. The starting point of the discussion is the art of Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana and how artistic sensibilities, traumatic memory—and a sense of obligation to improve the world—have been expressed through three generations of her family—both in who her children and grandchildren are and in how they express themselves artistically. The discussion will amplify this layered issue from other angles: what have recent biological and psychological investigations offered, regarding what memory is and how it works, if and how trauma can be carried in the DNA—and the implications of all of this for [...]

Free

Immortality, Memory, Creativity, and Survival:
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana,
Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana
Lecture by Ori Z Soltes, Washington DC

1014 - space for ideas 1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States

WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. Lecture featuring Ori Z Soltes, Teaching Professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York This lecture explores several interlocking themes. The work of three artists, each in a different medium—Alice was primarily a painter, Ronnie is a poet, and Kitra is a well-recognized photographer and filmmaker—will be presented and explored with regard to both aesthetic and conceptual intentions and outcomes. Since these three artists represent three generations from within one family, the question of how that familial relationship does or does not impinge on the artistic output will be explored. Inevitably, the fact that the first of the three was a [...]

Free

Legacy And Creativity:
The Filmmaking and Photography of Kitra Cahana
In Conversation with Ori Z Soltes

1014 - space for ideas 1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States

WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. Conversation featuring Kitra Cahana, Documentary Photographer, Videographer and Photo/Video Artist and Ori Z Soltes, Teaching Professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC Introduced by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of The Fritz Ascher Society in New York NY Kitra Cahana's award winning work ranges from photographic studies of American Teens for National Geographic Magazine to documentaries on the annual life-saving dance competition in a small town in northern Canada. She is renowned for work that consistently reflects a deep sense of empathy with her subjects. Her grandmother was a teen-aged Holocaust survivor who became an intense and powerful painter. Her father, a rabbi and a poet, was severely disabled by a stroke at the [...]

Free

Between Art and Record Keeping –
Artistic Representations of the Holocaust
Ori Z Soltes, Washington DC

1014 - space for ideas 1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States

WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. Visual art during and after the Holocaust, by victims and survivors eloquently contradicts the famous comment by Theodor Adorno that "after the Holocaust to make art is barbaric." On the contrary, it was and is necessary: as part of the record of events as they were transpiring, and as part of the human response to horror--to express anger, to raise questions, to offer healing--in the time after those events. Who creates the art and what kind of art is created? What role does it play in wrestling with the question of what God is and what we humans are? These issues have implications both from within the heart of the Holocaust and from well beyond its particular boundaries. [...]

Free

Worlds Apart:
Antithetical Jewish Experiences
in the Twentieth Century
A book discussion with Dr. Ori Z Soltes, Washington D.C.

1014 - space for ideas 1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States

Conversation with  Dr. Meital Orr and Dr. Ori Z. Soltes Opening remarks Rachel Stern, Fritz Ascher Society forPersecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art Anke Yael Popper, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Organized by the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. This program delves into the following books by Ori Z Soltes: Immortality, Memory, Creativity, and Survival: The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana This book reviews the story of a 14-year-old girl from Sarvar, Hungary who was deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis, together with her family. She was the sole survivor of the deportation and transit through three different camps, ended up marrying a rabbi, moving to Houston, Texas, [...]

Free

Alice Lok Cahana –
Beyond ‘The Last Days’:
Familial Continuity, Creativity, and Immortality
With Michael Berenbaum, Michael Z Cahana, Ken Lipper, Ori Z Soltes

1014 - space for ideas 1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States

Join us for a discussion about the Hungarian born Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana, whose life and art are recently recognized in two very different ways: The just remastered, Academy Award®-winning documentary, The Last Days, presented by Steven Spielberg and USC Shoah Foundation and the book Immortality, Memory, Creativity, and Survival: The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana, recently published by the Fritz Ascher Society of Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, which investigates three generations of the Cahana family and their art in the context of biological and psychological research, allowing a deep understanding of how trauma and especially the Holocaust experience is remembered. This event investigates the portrayal of Alice Lok Cahana, her life and art, in art book [...]

Free