Jenny Yurshansky
“My practice is deeply informed by being a refugee who was born stateless. Through a community oriented approach to research, I explore the trauma of displacement and interrogate notions of belonging and otherness within the frames of landscape, historical documents, and social constructs.
Formally, this manifests as absence, loss, or erasure. My long-term projects are intertwined narratives that utilize various materials such as cast, slumped, and found glass, charred steel, MDF manipulated to simulate antique display cases, embroidered textiles, hand-cut paper silhouettes of plants, laser etched granite, photographic installations, and writing. Developing these pieces requires intensive investigation through interviews and site visits to share the nuances of the stories of generations of migrants. My exhibitions revolve around public engagements and workshops offering the public opportunities to share, discuss, and exchange. I am a decentered facilitator who fosters connections between participants through somatic, visual, and written storytelling. These gatherings allow us to get to know one another in a way that allows us to be humans with nuance and specificity and to see one another through our stories, discovering the links between personal histories, the arc of socio-political events, and their impacts on our lives.”
Website: http://www.jennyyurshansky.com/