Previous Exhibitions
October 1 - 31: Wings of Memory:
The Holocaust & Genocide Art of Akiva Kenny Segan
A reception will be held with the artist from 5 to 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 15, at WSU Tri-Cities, in the Consolidated Information Center Room 102 (exhibition center), 2770 University Drive, Richland.
The reception is followed at 6 p.m. by an artist presentation upstairs in CIC Room 216. The public is invited. Admission to the events are free.
Recht und Gesetz (Child on Sidewalk) © Akiva Segan |
"I am an American Jewish artist living in Seattle. In the mid-1980’s I studied in Poland. My interest in European Jewish and Christian interaction in European history led, in 1991, to begin a series of drawings created in traditional media: ink, colored pencil, gouache.
The 'Under the Wings of G-D: Reflections on the Shoah, 1939-45' series is designed to increase awareness of and sensitivity to this history with portrayals of some of the 6,000,000 Jewish victims of the Nazis and the silence of most of European Christianity.
Everyone portrayed once had a name and was born to a mother and father. Each individual is portrayed with wings based on my research with the birds wings collection at the Burke Museum of Natural History at the University of Washington in Seattle.
In 1999 I began depicting non-Jewish victims of the Nazis. These include a Roma child and Christian or Christian background individuals who resisted the Nazis and Christians who tried to help Jews. Less than one-half of one percent
of European Christians tried to help Jews (or Roma) or assist those who were trying to help them.
After WWII ended, some Jewish Holocaust survivors believed the world would not witness mass murder again.
In 2002 I began a companion series, 'Sight-seeing with Dignity.' These portray victims of more contemporary hate crimes, genocide and war. Most victims of today’s conflicts and wars are children.
In addition to the murder of two-thirds of Europe’s Jews, the Nazi’s systematically murdered 250,000 mentally and physically disabled non-Jewish Germans and Austrians, half a million Roma, over one million Polish Catholics, two million Soviet (Russian) POW’s, millions of non Jewish Russian civilians. Thousands of political prisoners, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, labor and union activists, socialists, Communists and anti-Nazi Christians perished from brutality, slave labor, starvation and executions in camps too.
As in the WWII years, we face choices in our own communities on injustice around us. We can speak out, or we can be silent. Don’t be silent. The Holocaust did not have to happen."
Secondary content using h2 tag. Column 2
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Heading using the h3tag
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.