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Lehavdil: Passage. In harmony for angelic organ

02.07.2023 - 23:15 / High Synagogue, ul. Józefa 38

Dip your fingers in chalk or water. Touch the rim of the glasses in front of you. Listen to them chant in an ever-changing harmony. As day becomes night, you enter their sonic portal. 

Wojtek Blecharz is a Polish sound artist living and working in Berlin, Germany since 2015. In 2006, he graduated with honors from the Frederic Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw, and in 2015 he received a Ph. D. in Music Composition from the University of California in San Diego. Between 2012-2018, Wojtek had been curating the “Instalakcje” music festival at Warsaw’s Nowy Theater, featuring non-concert music: sound installations, performance installations, sound sculptures, music videos, music theater etc. Wojtek has also directed his three opera-installations. www.wojtekblecharz.com

We thank Primary School no.11 for the cooperation in this project.

Fot. Michał Ramus

LEHAVDÍL – להבדיל – ODDZIELNIE 

It is after sunset. Three stars have appeared in the sky. A transition takes place. The time devoted to resting is slipping away, the time of the week about to begin. This is a moment of in-between-ness.

In Judaism, the ritual that marks this moment is Havdalah. It reflects the act of differentiation between the profane and the holy, the everyday and the transcendental. As so many rituals, it is performed according to a sequence of prescribed rules and instructions. Only when they have been carried out, is the transition considered complete. But what if we lingered in that liminality?

“Lehavdíl” (להבדיל), which means “to distinguish” or “to separate”, explores Havdalah as a generative act that opens up a transitory space for experience. Between June 28th and July 2nd, three international artists reinterpret the ritual through a series of performative, multi-sensory, intimate, affective and tactile art projects.

curators: Lianne Mol & Yael Sherill, Curatorial Collective for Public Art

The Curatorial Collective for Public Art (CCPA) is an independent agency for the conceptualisation, production, mediation and representation of public art based in Berlin, Germany. It develops curatorial formats for site-specific, transdisciplinary, critical and urban art. CCPA understand the “public” in the term public art as the medium and material of its practice. As an initiative without a fixed space, it often works in the urban space; however, its practice extends into the public sphere, as well as the public in the sense of audience. Due its nomadic character, the collective is not tied to an exhibition space, and continues to conceptualise context-specific formats for its projects, which elude the traditional understanding of curating. After “Kumzits” in 2021 and “Maiseh” in 2022, which were created in collaboration with Jerusalem-based art organisation HaMiffal, “Lehavdíl” is the third project that CCPA is involved in curating for the Jewish Culture Festival.