It’s hard to walk out of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah without hearing “We Are Family.”
For the student artists presenting at today’s Student Art Exhibition held at Hillel at UCLA, the meaning of family can address many things: relationships between people, feelings of nostalgia or the warmth that a loved one can give.
Today, 13 undergraduates in the art department will showcase their works, exploring what the concept of family means to them in the Jewish context.
Jacqueline Cedar, a fourth-year art student and curator of the exhibit, says the exhibit’s concept is centered on the many notions of family ““ an idea that relates back to the traditions and values of the Jewish community.
“I really wanted to be able to stretch notions of the family,” Cedar said. “I didn’t just want it to be about a bunch of images of people sitting around the house.”
“I wanted it to be about nostalgia or memory, or even community, and just really allow it to revolve around that theme and … be a larger range of work.”
Though the art department does include Jewish students, the exhibit highlights the works of fellow students of many backgrounds.
“I had to think of something that related to the organization in some way because they are hosting it,” Cedar said.
“And as much as they want to promote the work of students on campus, they also have an agenda of their own that they bring into their community.”
Scott Klinger, a fourth-year art student and photographer, has eight works ready for display, including photos centered around the idea of paranoia in America and a post-apocalyptic American society.
Klinger is also showcasing a project that revolves around the memories of his grandmother. He captures the faint memories that they have shared and brings something quite personal to the piece.
“I lost my grandmother in October, and so (my) pictures show the overwhelming totality of loss,” Klinger said.
“I didn’t really have anything from her but I really wanted to do this project.”
Klinger says this project is bigger than his own personal experience; it’s about our ever-changing society and the people we lose as time passes.
“The photographs for that project, they’re kind of about not only loss of family but also about an acknowledgement about how the world is changing,” Klinger said. “It’s interesting to me because the whole Depression-era and World War II generation is disappearing.”
Third-year art student Lindsay August-Salazar’s aim was to deal with a community’s expectations about the elderly.
“I’m basically trying to create a dialogue for the audience to question how they’re treating the elderly,” August-Salazar said. “Also, to find out what’s going on personally: Do you neglect the elderly?”
With the popularity of plastic surgery among people all the way through age 40 or even 50, the disillusionment that comes with the aging process is being solved by going under the knife, August-Salazar said.
“We’re more concerned about what’s going on, like keeping ourselves younger,” she said.
“They’re trying to diminish the age, and with my work, it’s staring you in the face and it’s saying, this is inevitable, death is inevitable. … We should embrace what’s going on, we should embrace getting old.”
The variety of works branch out from the concrete idea of family and identify the nuances often ignored.
This also allows each artist to express a common theme through their individual ideas and creation while being appreciated in their own right.
“I wanted others to be able to appreciate artwork that’s been done by their fellow students as well as to get in touch with our community that’s outside of our immediate campus,” Cedar said.
“I hope it’s mostly about the artwork and (looking at) what other people’s areas are doing.”