When a colleague from the Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center suggested that we invite Holocaust survivors to speak at The Museum, my initial reaction was to say no, that this traditional approach to Holocaust education or remembrance was the role of other institutions, but not for us at The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM). As a contemporary Jewish museum, we have an obligation to respond to the issues of today and find new ways of talking about the Holocaust. And then we opened From Generation to Generation: Inherited Memory and Contemporary Art. A selection of artworks by twenty-four international artists, this exhibition focuses on artworks that wrestle with the memories inherited from previous generations. The artists, from many cultures, explore personal, collective, and historical memories, yet the Jewish artists in the exhibition all confront the legacy of the Holocaust in their artworks. I struggled to find the contemporary conversation in this work. How could I make these stories from the past relevant and salient, especially for our school audiences? This task felt particularly urgent, given that the exhibition opened shortly after the 2016 Presidential election, and the new administration’s impending policies have eerily similar echos to dark moments in twentieth century history. Suddenly, for me as well as for many other Americans, the issues of today and the issues of the past seemed to be merging, and the new conversation about teaching Holocaust history became a conversation about life in America today. As I personally agonized about our country’s seeming inability to learn from the past, it became more important that this be a takeaway for students visiting From Generation to Generation. I wanted to pose these questions: Once we inherit a memory, what is our obligation? What do we do with the histories that are passed down to us?
I then realized that pairing a testimony—a primary source from history with an exploration of art about the inheritance of memory in our galleries—could be a powerful way to share the importance of learning from the past. How much more impact Lisa Kokin’s Inventory—featuring hundreds of tiny personal objects, carefully preserved and each representing a memory, a life—might have when paired with a talk by a survivor who actually had to flee a home, leaving an array of precious belongings behind. Artists like Hank Willis Thomas hit the past-present connection even harder, offering visitors a glimpse of themselves in a scene from the 1965 Selma March by placing an historic photograph (a Spider Martin photograph of Amelia Boynton Robinson) on a mirror. Thomas’ piece forces us to confront ourselves in that scene, to consider the role we would have played then, and, more importantly, the role we are playing now, in our place and time. And though I always thought that The CJM would avoid overtly traditional Holocaust education, as a Jewish museum, the part of our past we could learn most from, the part that seemed even more urgently relevant to connect with today’s critical issues, was the Holocaust. We decided that there was no better historical source than a firsthand account, and so The CJM did what I thought we would not do—offered talks by Holocaust survivors.
During the months of January and February, The CJM presented special Tours + Talks, pairing a tour of From Generation to Generation with a firsthand account from a Holocaust survivor. These presentations served 600 diverse students from middle and high schools from across the Bay Area, including Quarry Lane High School, Dublin, Children’s Day School, SF (Middle School), Legacy High School, Napa, Jefferson High School, Daly City, Holden High School, Orinda, Hayward High School, and San Lorenzo High School. Pairing tours with these talks offer students a unique opportunity to connect art and history, humanize historical events, cultivate empathy, and strengthen the links between past and present.
During one particularly moving presentation, survivor Anne Marie Yellin shared, “If they had built a wall, I wouldn’t be here today,” a statement that impacted CJM staff, students, and teachers alike with its urgent message for our time. A CJM tour guide, at the conclusion of a recent talk, said, “I think this is one of the most important things The CJM has ever done.”
A teacher from Legacy High School agreed, sharing “what an extraordinary visit our students had yesterday…The gift we were given from Anne Marie Yellin was a gift that will keep on giving. Ms. Yellin's history, I believe, will challenge the students to not only think about others but to not be afraid to fight for what is right. [We] will be incorporating From Generation to Generation into the curriculum so that our students may start talking to family members so that they may learn their history.”
Over the past few weeks I’ve reflected on why this program had such a strong impact. Was it that its Holocaust connections related it to the school curriculum? Was it the unique approach of pairing first-person testimonies with a contemporary art experience? Was it the cross-cultural nature of the work in From Generation to Generation? Or was it simply the timeliness of the topic and the need for teachers and students alike to come together to connect and process and perhaps be inspired to take action? The answer is probably a bit of all of the above. Regardless, the impact of this program was palpable, and has inspired me, as an educator at The CJM, to hone my perception of the heart of our mission. I plan to continue to develop programming that truly makes Jewish experiences relevant for twenty-first century audiences. We have an obligation to reflect on the past and to respond to the issues of today. That’s what it means to be a living, vibrant Jewish museum.
Janine Okmin is the Associate Director of Education at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, where she develops programming for audiences of a variety of ages, develops resources for schools and teachers, and is responsible for training Museum tour guides. Formerly the Associate Manager of Learning Through Art, an artist residency program at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Okmin has developed and taught workshops in New York, Boston, Denver, and Taiwan, where she led professional development sessions at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. In addition to working with teachers and children, she has developed arts education programs for teens at the Center for Arts Education in New York City and for college students as the Director of Jewish Cultural and Artistic Expression at Brooklyn College Hillel. Okmin holds a BA in Drama from Northwestern University and received an MA in Arts Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University.
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From Generation to Generation: Inherited Memory and Contemporary Art is organized by The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco. Lead sponsorship is provided by the Koret Foundation and Gaia Fund. Major sponsorship is provided by Dorothy R. Saxe and Wendy and Richard Yanowitch. Patron sponsorship is provided by Shana Nelson Middler and David Middler and by Anita and Ronald Wornick. Supporting sponsorship is provided in honor of Ellen Kahn. Additional support is provided by Rosanne and Al Levitt and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhibition program is supported by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Photos by Gary Sexton Photography. Video by Laurie Lezin-Schmidt.