Walking in Ethnocidal Places
Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman
February 21 鈥� March 1, 2025
Audain Gallery 鈥� SFU School for the Contemporary Arts
149 Hastings St., Vancouver
Opening: February 20鈥�, 5:00 PM
Haunting is the cost of subjugation.
鈥擡ve Tuck and C. Ree
. . . for even the mundane act of cobbling has cosmic ramifications.
鈥擡lliot R. Wolfson
This anamnesis supposes duration.
鈥擩acques Coursil
Walking in Ethnocidal Places presents traces and documentation from two social projects co-directed by Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman, 亘賷丕賳 丕賱氐毓賵丿 廿賱賶 丕賱爻賲丕亍 flight manifesto (2019-24) and Estery Wierzba / Esther鈥檚 Willow (2018- ), a culmination of his doctoral work in the School for the Contemporary Arts at 尤物视频.
Propelled choreographically by practices in listening-as-composition, community research, counter-memorialization, traditional culture, and ambulatory ritual, the projects respectively attempt to intervene with/in and between local sites constituent of enclosure, expropriation, and genocide. Further, the shape of each work is guided by the directives, relations, and legacies of a nonhuman entity.
In 亘賷丕賳 丕賱氐毓賵丿 廿賱賶 丕賱爻賲丕亍, a shifting collective of hearing and Deaf co-authors engage in long-distance discourse with hard-of-hearing sound artist Dirar Kalash to design and enact a silent walk in three parts over 13 months up the Nooksack River: an anti-survey and visceral confrontation with foundational architectures of settler-colonization in Whatcom County (US). Kalash retroactively scored the walk in his family home, creating a seven-hour sonic composition during the Gaza genocide.
In Estery Wierzba, Katarzyna Sala and Marta Sala, third-generation residents on the unnamed Esther's Square, collaborate with Sniderman to mobilize local cultural workers, residents, descendants, and survivors of the city of Chrzan贸w (PL) to re-plant a white willow sapling where its elder for decades hovered the concealed foundations of the city's destroyed Great Synagogue.
EVENTS
Opening Reception
Thursday, February 20, 5:00 PM 鈥� 7:00 PM
Audain Gallery, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Closing Reception and Artist Talk
with guests Dirar Kalash & Nastaran Saremy
Saturday, March 1, 11:30 AM 鈥� 1:00 PM
Audain Gallery, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Audain Gallery hours: Tuesday 鈥� Saturday, 12 PM 鈥� 5 PM
BIOGRAPHIES
Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman is a poet-artist and fourth generation Ashkenazi American settler from Philadelphia (US) and other places in the traditional territory of the Lenape diaspora, with ancestral ties to eradicated Jewish communities in Warsaw, Jaroslaw and Rzesz贸w (PL), Chi葯in膬u (MLD), Dnipro (UKR), and Seirijai (LITH). Recent works include the durational contemplation Lost in J眉discher Friedhof Wei脽ensee (2016-19); the film Night Herons (2021), recipient of the 2024 ING Polish Art Foundation Main Prize, created with Joanna Rajkowska; and the exilic memorial Axa Xeyal Kirin Imagined Land 禺丕讴蹖 禺蹠蹖丕诘讴乇丕賵 being created with Nastaran Saremy. He is Assistant Professor in Socially Engaged Art at Western Washington University's Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies.
Dirar Kalash is a musician and sound artist, based in Palestine, whose work spans a wide range of musical and sonic practices within a variety of instrumental, compositional and improvisational contexts. Kalash also extends his practice into inter-disciplinary theoretical research. He has produced several solo and collaborative musical albums and is active as touring musician, in addition to that he also created several sound installations, live audio-visual performances, field recordings and soundscape compositions series under the title of Sonic Front.
Based in Berlin, Katarzyna Sala co-creates literary and artistic projects, focusing on the culture of memory, contemporary literature and the intersections of literature, art and social affairs. The latest projects are Esther鈥檚 Willow 2021-2024, Work break in G枚rli. Artistic relations systems in public space 2021/2022, 脹鈭�-Berl卯n Eine kreativ-anarchistische urbane Flucht-Chronik 2020, and an anthology of Kurdish poems Kurdish Voices from Rojava / Deng锚n helbestvan锚n kurd ji Rojava.
Marta Sala is a transdisciplinary artist 鈥媌ased in Berlin who often works in collaboration with groups and individuals. She focuses on issues such as intersectionality, right to the city, ecology and the commons and explores the problem of waste, marginalization and solidarity in diversity. She creates works from various material remains to extract individual poetic narratives. Her artistic practice includes painting, installation, sewing, costume design, video, performance, participative and public art.
Nastaran Saremy is a Kurdish-Iranian interdisciplinary researcher and critic in the field of cultural and social analysis and aesthetics. She majored in Philosophy and Aesthetics, now doing her PhD in Media and Communication studies at 尤物视频, Canada. Her area of interest is revolution and social change, especially the ways in which the social praxis is aesthetically composed. In her PhD, she aims to explore how memory practices and mnemonic projects mobilize or constrain social transformation in societies undergoing rapid political change, and thereby shed light on the relationship between the collective memories and social movements. She has presented her works in various conferences worldwide and published works in different journals, books and catalogues, in Farsi and English.
CREDITS
Certain artworks, traces, or documentation in the exhibition also include the authorship of Wil Henkel, Miguel Azuaga, Cynthia Camlin, Sophie Cortes, Cheong Kin Man, Justin Collins, Sean Prestia, 艢omi Dominika 艢niegocka, Paul Helmich, Catherine Rose Evans.
亘賷丕賳 丕賱氐毓賵丿 廿賱賶 丕賱爻賲丕亍 flight manifesto was co-authored with Brel Froebe, Harlin/Hayley Steele, Cascadia Deaf Nation (Ashanti Monts Tr茅viska, Gareth Magiskog, Chell Hull, Rei Lung, Gabriel Perrusquia), Cynthia Camlin, Justin Collins, Yessenia Moncada, Andrew Babson, Yanara Friedland, Vanessa Malapote-Blandino, Elizabeth Kerwin, Jillian Froebe, Zo毛 Fassett-Manuszewski, Carly Lloyd, Sophie Cortes, Emma Blakslee; received research support from Joshua Olsen, Julie Mauermann, Tli鈥檔uk鈥檇zwidzi/Althea Wilson, X'welwelat'se William John, Mary Tuti Baker, Regina Jeffries, Peter Rand, Dolores Calder贸n, Whatcom Human Rights Task Force, Whatcom Peace and Justice Center, Benjamin Kersten, Aisha Mansour, Tamyka Bullen, Raj Singh, Clovis B; and received funding support from 尤物视频, Western Washington University, and Square One Foundation.
Estery Wierzba / Esther鈥檚 Willow was produced by FestivALT in partnership with Irena and Mieczys艂aw Mazaraki Museum, Municipal Center of Culture, Sport and Recreation of Chrzan贸w, Urban Memory Foundation, Fundacja Zapomniane, Municipal Public Library of Chrzan贸w; received research support from Dr. Marek Tuszewicki; and received funding support from 尤物视频, Allianz Kulturstiftung for Europe, and the European Union.
SPECIAL THANKS
The artist wishes to express his gratitude to the years of support provided by his PhD committee: Dr. Claudette Lauzon (advisor), Dr. Jeff Derksen, Dr. Kirsten Emiko McAllister, and Althea Thauberger.
This exhibition is presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Contemporary Arts.
Presented by the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU