DIVIDE UP THOSE IN DARKNESS
FROM
THE ONES WHO WALK IN LIGHT David Feinberg
September 14 – December 11, 2021 Katherine E. Nash Gallery University of Minnesota
All art comes from the unconscious. The unconscious makes connections between the past and the present. Truth has to be found, not contrived or preconceived. Seeking truth is the way to originality. The only true thing a person has is their unique perception of the world. - David Feinberg
Front Cover: David Feinberg Divide Up Those in Darkness from the Ones Who Walk in Light, 1989 Acrylic on canvas, 69 x 50 in.
CONTENTS A Daily Practice of Engagement Howard Oransky p. 2 Ahead of the Curve Christine Baeumler p. 6 The Art of Unexpected Significance David Feinberg p. 12 An Innovator of Hybridization Mathew Zefeldt p. 18 A Friendship of 50 Years Petra Johnita Lommen p. 24 Art and Theatre in the Defense of Human Rights Luis Ramos-Garcia p. 30 Voice to Vision A Chronological List of Participants p. 36
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A Daily Practice of Engagement Howard Oransky
The Katherine E. Nash Gallery presents Divide Up Those in Darkness from the Ones Who Walk in Light, September 14 – December 11, 2021. This exhibition celebrates the 50-year artistic and teaching career of David Feinberg in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. The exhibition is comprised of two retrospective collections of work: David Feinberg’s own artworks from 1968 to present and works from the Voice to Vision human rights project which began in 2002. David Feinberg’s career at the University of Minnesota embodies the Vision for the Department of Art: We believe that art has the power to transform our understanding of the world. The artistic practice and research undertaken by our students and professors have a lasting impact on the individual, the community, and the environment, and resonates on visceral, emotional, and philosophical levels. We experiment, we take risks, we engage critically and collaboratively with one another. With our work, we help to provide crucial leadership and context to the ongoing, urgent societal conversations that are taking place at the university and beyond, about our roles and responsibilities 2
to ourselves, to one another, and to the planet itself. Through his studio work, his teaching, and his service to the community, David has demonstrated how these aspirations can be translated into a daily practice of engagement. I am grateful to the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Department of Art, and the Dean’s First-Year Research and Creative Scholars Program for the financial support that has made this publication possible. My thanks to the contributors for their texts: Christine Baeumler, David Feinberg, Petra Johnita Lommen, Luis Ramos-Garcia, and Mathew Zefeldt; and to Emily Swanberg for the graphic design. It is a pleasure to present this exhibition with David. My appreciation to our Assistant Curator, Teréz Iacovino and to our Undergraduate Intern, Eleanore McKenzie Stevenson for their dedication and tireless effort installing the exhibition in the gallery. The Katherine E. Nash Gallery is operated by the Department of Art. Our program is supported by the administrative and technical staff of the department: Christine Baeumler, Jim Gubernick, Tarisa Halek, Karen Haselmann, Regina Hopingardner, Shannon Birge Laudon, Paul Linden, Seva Ormanidhi, Lynda Pavek, Sonja Peterson, Kimberlee Roth, Robin Schwartzman, Caroline Houdek Solomon, and Patricia Straub.
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Howard Oransky became Director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery in 2011. Before joining the University of Minnesota, he was Director of Continuing Studies at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Prior to that he was Director of Planning at Walker Art Center.
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David Feinberg Bathroom Pink (Where it all started), 1971 Oil on sewn canvas, 59 x 48 in.
David Feinberg Don Quixote, Dog and Woman, 1968 Oil on canvas, 59 x 48 in.
Ahead of the Curve Christine Baeumler
Working as the longest serving art teacher at the University of Minnesota has been quite a ride. Every one of the five decades at the university was like living in a different world, a crazy roller-coaster ride through time, sometimes being compared to bumper cars and other times being close to the stars on top of the Ferris Wheel. I wouldn’t change a thing. It was the best education in understanding the evolving world and its values for good or bad. I wish to thank the University of Minnesota for giving me the academic freedom to pursue my childhood dream of doing art for my entire life and be respected by the institution and the Minnesota community. What more could a kid from Brooklyn ask for? - David Feinberg, April 28, 2021
The exhibition Divide Up Those in Darkness from the Ones Who Walk in Light at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery celebrates the extraordinarily innovative vision and artistic career of Associate Professor David 6
Feinberg. Socially engaged art has recently been recognized in academic institutions, for example, the new area of Interdisciplinary Art and Social Practice was established in the Department of Art in 2014. However, Professor Feinberg has long been ahead of the curve in his collaborations with members of various communities, in their sharing of stories of trauma and resilience through artworks and documentaries and making visible and audible experiences that would most likely go unseen and unheard. The importance of sharing these stories, now and for future generations, is critical for creating accountability and standing up against human rights violations. Associate Professor Feinberg has taught at the University of Minnesota for fifty years and is notably the longest serving faculty member in the history of the Department of Art. Feinberg’s list of a multitude of accomplishments and accolades is a long and distinguished one. Most recently, Professor Feinberg was conferred Professor Emeritus status. As Associate Professor Mathew Zefeldt astutely notes in his essay, “We often think of what we do here in three distinct categories: Research, Teaching, and Service. David is an innovator of hybridization. He has always blurred the lines between teaching, research, and service -- including students in research, bringing research into the classroom, interweaving service to the community into research.” Summarizing David Feinberg’s artistic, teaching, and communitybased activity over the past 50 years is nearly impossible. Associate Professor Feinberg has exhibited his artwork extensively both nationally in New York, Florida, North Dakota, North Carolina, California, Iowa, and Texas as well as internationally in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. As described in the announcement of his recent University of Minnesota President’s Award (2020), Professor Feinberg “works to advance human rights advocacy through Voiceto-Vision, a collaborative art project that addresses human rights abuses by documenting the stories of survivors of genocide and activists from around the world.” Associate Professor Feinberg has worked with over 200 participants in the Voice to Vision project since 2002. He has created 16 documentaries to date. Notably, over 14,000 7
Voice to Vision documents, including artworks, narratives, and video documentaries have been downloaded by the public in the last seven years from the University of Minnesota‘s Library Conservancy. The number of students and community members he has worked with is staggering. He has taught over 300 courses for the University of Minnesota. This includes day classes, extension classes, undergraduate honors classes, High School Summer Honors classes, and the Osher Life-Long Learning Institute. He has worked with students from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the Dean’s First Year Research and Creative Scholars Program (DFRACS) every year since each of these programs started. Associate Professor Feinberg received the C.E.E. Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award at the University of Minnesota in 2002. He has led Professional Art Practice Critique Groups since 1992, in which over 30 professional artists have participated each year. Additionally, Professor Feinberg has designed 15 annual Lake Koronis overnight retreats for artists since 2007. These 3-day long retreats replaced the 25 annual Split Rock Artists week-long retreats that Feinberg led from 1980 - 2005, when that program ended. Feinberg has also participated in 5 week-long Mentor Retreats for the Grand Marais Art Colony. In addition to his prolific career as an artist, Associate Professor Feinberg has curated 16 annual exhibitions of art concerning the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894 at the Hinckley Fire Museum, in Hinckley, Minnesota. Over the years participants in these exhibitions included undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty from many departments of the university, and area artists. Each of these exhibitions were displayed for a full year. He has been the juror for 100 art exhibitions since 1969 at colleges, art centers, professional art organizations, and high school regional competitions. Professor Feinberg has also lectured extensively at high schools, colleges, conventions, galleries, and museums regionally and nationally.
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The Art Department, the College of Liberal Arts, the University of Minnesota, and the broader community are all the beneficiaries of David Feinberg’s extraordinary energy and commitment. David Feinberg’s work will continue to impact current and future generations of artists and scholars. His work and career bear witness to the most difficult and heart-wrenching parts of personal and political histories, while being a cathartic way for people to process these events and to ensure that we work collectively to prevent future acts of human rights abuse and injustice. While David Feinberg’s work deals with serious subject matter, those who know him appreciate his wonderful enthusiasm and enduring sense of humor. We are wishing David a wonderful new chapter in retirement, and we expect he will continue to be actively engaged in our lives.
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Christine Baeumler is Professor and Chair of the Department of Art. As an artist and educator, Baeumler explores the potential of art as a catalyst to increase awareness about environmental issues and to facilitate stewardship. Baeumler’s communitybased environmental art practice is collaborative and involves ecological and aesthetic interventions with attention to increasing biodiversity, improving water quality, providing habitat and engaging with youth and community on issues of sustainability and climate change.
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David Feinberg Six Playing Train and Then There Was One, 2003 Acrylic, collage, and wood on sewn canvas, 46 ½ x 42 ½ in. Collaborative work with storyteller Joe Grosnacht, survivor with artists Emily Widi, Ryan Friar, and Ann Cossette.
David Feinberg Divide Up Those in Darkness from the Ones Who Walk in Light, 1989 Acrylic on canvas, 69 x 50 in.
The Art of Unexpected Significance David Feinberg
Ever since I was a child, I was interested in good versus evil. This was exemplified by a drawing I made when I was 3 years old, which my mother saved. The drawing was of a pirate ship fighting a police boat. Being from Brooklyn, I was a Dodger fan who hated the NY Yankees -- to my child’s mind, they were “evil.” Since I could not yet read, I interpreted the logo of the Yankees (the N over the Y) as two X’s side by side. This seemed evil to me and so I used it for the pirate ship’s flag. As I reflected on my work for this exhibition, I realized that I have never stopped being interested in the conflict between good and evil. At the beginning of graduate school, I was painting on a canvas that was on the floor and another student asked what I was doing. Off the top of my head, I replied, “It’s an experiment in terror.” My terror is a catalyst for me to go deeper. It forces me into creativity. Whenever I start a painting, I feel scared because I never know what I will find or whether I will be able to pull it off. 12
My early work was representational painting, using oil on canvas. This was followed by a period of abstract work on canvas, also with oil. In 1976, I started drawing and painting on gessoed panels returning to a representational style. I drew on my own personal history for content in all of this work. In 1987, I became interested in history outside of my own, particularly World War II, and tragedies such as the Buddy Holly plane crash, Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and later, the Hinckley Fire. My investigations of World War II led to a particular interest in the Holocaust, in part because it was part of my own cultural history. I was working with research from books and magazines when I discovered that what I really wanted was to go right to the source and hear testimony from living people. In 2002, I spoke with Professor Steven Feinstein, Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, about my interest in working with Holocaust survivors and creating the Voice to Vision project and he immediately said, “Let’s do it” without asking for any additional information. After several years of working on projects involving the Holocaust, I wanted to use the tools I learned in Voice to Vision to investigate the tragedies of other cultures. Eventually I worked with people from Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and Latin America. At this time, my personal work merged with my work on Voice to Vision. A lot of my own work and Voice to Vision work is 2D/3D. It all started in 1979, when several graduate students asked me to mentor them in 2D painting on 3D surfaces. I studied 3D product design at Parson’s School of Design as an undergraduate. For critiquing their work, I made examples of 3D paintings. I soon started doing 3D pieces of my own, a practice which continues. I also began experimenting with placing small 3D objects in my pieces. I became aware of a concept I called “unexpected significance” in which an object brings back memories from one’s unconscious. I began using prompts like old toys and other objects from my junk drawer to elicit recollections from storytellers. I found that they were able to remember events they had forgotten altogether or recover details of events they only vaguely remembered. 13
Voice to Vision captures the extraordinary experiences of people from different parts of the world who have encountered human atrocities. Their stories are first shared through dialogue, and then transformed into works of visual art. The art pieces are created through a collaborative effort involving a team of artists, students, witnesses, story tellers, and activists. As the story tellers share their experiences, members of the team exchange ideas and make creative decisions together to produce a work of art that profoundly affects audiences. The collaboration process is video documented so that various communities and future generations can experience it. The documentaries feature original scores composed by musicians adding another artistic dimension to the project. It is my hope for Voice to Vision that audiences will find ways to connect their own life experiences to the stories represented in the art. The project seeks to educate the public and stimulate discussion about difficult topics. The V2V team also hopes to inspire others to use the visual arts to investigate their own personal histories. Beth Andrews and I lead this project in collaboration with the Department of Art and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Other participants include professors from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, and the Department of Music as well as members of the surrounding Twin Cities communities. All art comes from the unconscious. The unconscious makes connections between the past and the present. Truth has to be found, not contrived or preconceived. Seeking truth is the way to originality. The only true thing a person has is their unique perception of the world.
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David Feinberg earned an MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He also has undergraduate degrees in Graphic Design from Parsons School of Design (The New School) and in Art Education from the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz. In 1967, he was the travelling art teacher for grades K-12 for the upstate county of Ulster, New York. He was also an Assistant Professor of Art at William Rainey Harper College from 1969 to 1971. He came to the University of Minnesota in September of 1971. In 2002, he created the Voice to Vision project. Since that time, he has made multiple works of art and documentaries with people who have experienced or witnessed human atrocities all over the world. Feinberg’s art and Voice to Vision have been exhibited in colleges, universities, art and community centers locally, nationally, and internationally.
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David Feinberg Road to Burundi, 2006 Acrylic, collage on canvas, 52 x 44 in. Collaborative work with drawing contributions from Rwandan survivor Alice Tuza and her sister Floriane Robins-Brown and Voice to Vision artists Caroline Kent, Kelly Frush, David Harris, Andy Kastenberg, and Solomon Atta.
David Feinberg We’re Also Part of the Making of the Modern World, 2021 Mixed media, 31 x 32 in. Collaborative work with storytellers Dr. Brenda Child, Steve Premo, Benay McNamara and artists Beth Andrews, Joey Feinberg, Reid Luskey, Stefanie Suhon and Adolfo Menendez.
An Innovator of Hybridization Mathew Zefeldt
David Feinberg has taught at the University of Minnesota for 50 years. He started at the Department of Art in September 1971. Also in 1971, Patton won Best Picture at the Oscars, and over at the Grammys, Carole King won both Best Album and Best Song, Carly Simon won best new artist, and Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers won best R&B song. Apollo 14 was the 3rd mission to land on the moon. Because David is a baseball fan, I will also note that the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1971 world series which was also the first world series to feature a night game. David’s ongoing Voice to Vision project which started in 2002 involves collaboration and includes oral and visual testimony from diverse cultures concerning their personal tragic experiences. David works with survivors of genocide, and the group engages in story telling which results in visual representations of their stories, collaboratively made in every respect. The project is so powerful because rather than focusing on the larger narratives that you might find in history 18
books, it centers on the stories of individuals, which are so much more rich, vivid, and impactful. David also has a number of other projects which sit at the intersection of storytelling, painting, sculpture, history, tragedy, and most importantly community. Throughout David’s distinguished career, he has always included and often centered students. David has been a constant mentor to students in the Department of Art. We often think of what we do here in three distinct categories: research, teaching, and service. David is an innovator of hybridization. He has always blurred the lines between research, teaching, and service --including students in research, bringing research into the classroom, interweaving service to the community into research, etc. David was most recently awarded the Community Engaged Scholar Award, which is a perfect illustration of this prolonged engagement. Two of David’s biggest fears are heights and having people sing happy birthday to him. He has always strayed away from the spotlight, but his legacy at the University of Minnesota will be kept alive by those who worked with him mostly closely, and those who remember his stories.
A Brief Q & A with David Feinberg
What has been your favorite part of working with students? I coined the phrase “unexpected significance” many years ago as the main reason why some of your artworks talk to you forever. It is also true for my teaching. My favorite part of working with students is when some students that I thought were at the bottom of the class, became the best students at the end of the class. How’s that for unexpected significance. They remind me of myself when I was a student. You can’t fake it. 19
What is the biggest change you have seen happen in the art department over the years? The current faculty are much nicer people than in the past. The awful politics and super egos that occurred during my first 30 years in the department have finally transformed into a thoughtful, friendly, and sincere group that make up the present-day Art Department. Perhaps I should stay another 20 years?
What advice would you give to a junior faculty member? My advice to junior faculty members is to treat everyone with respect but remember your priorities. Art should be the most important thing in your life. Don’t put it on the back burner, while you spend more time with materialistic endeavors. Once you compromise to materialism, it starts to grow like an addiction, especially if you are rewarded for it. Put your material endeavors on the back burner, addressing them only when absolutely necessary and necessary is not forever. You only get what you spend your time on. Set an example that art can change the world. According to Joseph Campbell, art is a message in a bottle for the future. And of course, have a wonderful sense of humor for your own protection!
What are you looking forward to most during your retirement? I always wanted to be a professional baseball player! I think I’ll look into that.
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Mathew Zefeldt is Associate Professor of Drawing and Painting in the Department of Art. Zefeldt utilizes traditional strategies in the history of painting to capture and question the contemporary emergence of screen culture. He has an M.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of California, Davis (2011) and a B.A. in Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2009). His exhibition, Twilight, with Naomi Nakazato, was presented at 5-50 Gallery, Long Island City, New York in 2020.
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David Feinberg, 2-Headed
(2 headed Dog image).
Schumacher, Rita Morris
Olivia Nortwen, Miki
Shahriar, Benay McNamara,
Michelle Englund, Sima
and Voice to Vision artists
Patricio Vallejo Aristazabal
Valerie Osorio Restrepo,
Carlos E. Sepulveda,
Carlos Araque Osorio,
Latin American storytellers,
Collaborative work with
add 3 ½ x 6 ¼ in.)
36 x 48 in. (extensions
and wood on hardboard,
2020, Acrylic, graphite,
Dog - Genocide and Hope,
David Feinberg, The First and Last Time I Saw I Saw My Grandmother, 1999, Acrylic on 3/D wood construction, 30 x 60 in.
A Friendship of 50 Years Petra Johnita Lommen
I first met David Feinberg in 1972 when I became an art major at the University of Minnesota. At the time, I was 18 and David was 27. Because of his youth I had no idea he was an art professor. His brilliant and irreverent humor defied the stereotypical preconceptions I had of what a professor would be like. We had a lot in common and our initial encounter grew into a friendship and respect that has lasted a surprising 50 years. During the span of that friendship, we have collaborated on team-teaching art classes, developed class content, and have worked on joint art projects together. As an example, it has been a great honor to have worked on the Voice to Vision project for the past 15 years. We have had literally thousands of hours of conversations about the creative process and art making. As I look at the current retrospective of David’s art I can say yes, I was there. As I know the stories behind the creation of these works, I can also see in these artworks my life rolling by on the walls. This inside knowledge makes it challenging to develop a synopsis concerning 24
what it is all about. I have contemplated how I can say something meaningful, months before writing this. I could tell you many wonderful and even funny stories, but I feel I should speak to the underlaying foundation of the art on exhibit. When David Feinberg arrived at the University of Minnesota during the tumultuous years of the Viet Nam War era and the subsequent campus unrest of those years, he was perfectly equipped to meaningfully teach the complexities of the creative process and art making. Having a design background from Parson’s School Of Design, an education degree and certification from the State University Of New York New Paltz, and a Master Of Fine Art degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, David had a diversity of art educational experiences that would challenge and inspire not only the students of that time but also future generations that would attend the University. As a former student, I have been very fortunate to have both studied and collaborated with David. I have been a witness to the life of his creativity that we are honoring. As I look at this current exhibition, I am reminded of a conversation David and I had years ago about our early inspirations. I once told David that as a young art student I had first seen the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. While looking at the painting I had suddenly realized with remarkable clarity what making art was all about. David immediately jumped in and said, “I had the same exact experience.” So, what was this revelation, this bolt of lightning? I offer here the famous quote by Picasso when he had to explain his motivations. “What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes if he’s a painter, ears if he’s a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he’s a poet or even, if he’s a boxer, only some muscles? Quite the contrary, he is at the same time a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, passionate or pleasing events in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How is it possible to be uninterested in other men and by virtue of what cold nonchalance can you detach yourself from a life that they supply so copiously? No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It is an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.” For David 25
and me, everything was clear. The enemy was cultural intolerance, ignorance, and bigotry. Both of us were on the same page about this. The ambition of developing a “proper” curriculum vitae or exhibiting paintings that spoke to current fads was irrelevant. Guernica taught both of us that art was created out of a deep personal necessity. This sense of necessity manifests itself in all of David’s work. Throughout the trajectory of David’s art there is a profound sense of autobiographical content that can be seen in both his representational and nonrepresentational work. For myself, a real illumination on this point becomes clear in David’s Kaddish for the Immigrant’s Son (1987). The Hebrew prayer for the dead swirling through this large painting memorialized the death of David’s father. I feel that in this painting we begin to see the artist’s future path that would lead to the monumental achievement of the Voice to Vision project. The Voice to Vision project would document and honor the traumatic experiences suffered by Holocaust and genocide survivors of diverse cultures in both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. David’s mother had spent her final years documenting and cataloging stories from the Holocaust. It was shortly after her death that David began his involvement with the Voice to Vision project. The individual artist became the collaborative artist, the epic conductor working with an ensemble of survivors and storytellers. Together they created a transcendent monument of profound educational value where art triumphs over brutality, darkness, and ignorance. Now, more than ever, we can witness how art is a necessary inquiry for the perilous times in which we live where the values of inclusion and diversity are under attack. The Voice to Vision project warns us of what is at stake if we lose our humanity. As the art historian Simon Schama said of Picasso’s Guernica, “So maybe it is when the bombs start dropping that we find out what art is really for.”
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David Feinberg has never made paintings to decorate walls or to buy and sell as commodities with a short shelf life. His life as an artist and as an educator has always been an example to his students of how they should approach their gifts and how they should publicly share them. Thank you, David, for enriching my creative life and thank you for the exciting years of our friendship.
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Petra Johnita Lommen received a B.F.A. in 1979 and an M.F.A. in 1984 from the University of Minnesota. She has exhibited her work both regionally and nationally since 1972. She is currently teaching Visual Art through the St. Paul School System at the American Indian Magnet School. She has team taught art with David Feinberg and participated in art projects with him for over 45 years.
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56 1/2 x 66 in.
2003, Acrylic on canvas,
American Pilot Over Auschwitz,
David Feinberg,
Collaborative work with storyteller Kimchi Hoang, with Beth Andrews, Michelle Englund, and students Kristin Anton and Jane Bollweg.
David Feinberg, Evacuation (Vietnam), 2016, Mixed media, 33 1/2 x 19 ½ in.
Art and Theatre in the Defense of Human Rights Luis Ramos-Garcia
David Feinberg is an outspoken advocate and natural community leader for global understanding and global justice, a strong defender of human rights activist, and an exceptional artist. David followed a long lifelearning trek that for the most part involved global communities coming from all social, political, and geographic levels. Due to his advocacy, social justice practitioners and seasoned war-torn political activists and victims from different countries came to Minnesota to share their private and public stories about their encounters with terror, despair, disappearances, ethnic/race displacements, dictatorships, and other aberrations against underrepresented minorities, including Jews, Muslims, Afro-Latin Americans, Indians, shantytown dwellers, and Asians. An essential part of David’s scholarly activities is related to his role as a founder of Voice to Vision, an artistic human rights project that expressed the experiences of those who survived the Holocaust and the killing fields of four continents. Because of his crucial role in the dissemination of visual documents of human suffering, trauma, and healing processes, David became a genuine U.S.A. peace ambassador. 30
His art exhibitions reached not only highly recognized art centers such as the Ibero-American Theater Festival in Cadiz, Spain and the Corporación Colombiana de Teatro in Bogotá, but also the Service Employees International Union in Minneapolis (six thousand members) as well as at Hmong, Somali, Latino, and working-class communities. Recently, at the XXXIV FIT of Cadiz Theater Festival, one of David’s art installations (La Tía Norica – a piece on a two-hundred-and-fifty-yearold European puppet group) was donated to Spain, celebrating the retirement of José Bablé, the director of the Spanish Festival as well as Tia Norica’s current director. When I met David six years ago, I recognized his strong commitment to undergraduate education, not only for his innovative courses and creative workshops, but for his clear intent to bridge his own engaged scholarship with his teaching. His students praised his unwavering support, his total engagement, his tireless work revising their writings and their artistic contributions. He was focusing on human rights and art as well as on the recovery of a historical memory he sensed was getting lost in the new generation. By 2015, I had worked with several ethnic communities not only in Minnesota, but in California, Florida, Kansas, New York, and Texas, and I had an extensive local and international theater network covering many Latinx, and Hispanic communities. This enabled me to bring theater directors, human rights activists, genocide survivors, scholars, community leaders, etc. to my annual symposia and theater festivals. Almost immediately, David and I began working together, bringing some of those community artists to his studio, and we started producing art installations that needed an entire year of modifications by David’s art team of community volunteers, students, survivors, musicians, and other professionals. David included Hispanic and Portuguese playwrights, engaging the rest of us as translators and as intellectually connected cultural forces that would facilitate his understanding of the Spanish intelligentsia, providing cultural capital as well as an active and intense artist network. Upon returning to their countries, those foreign artists began spreading the news about Voice to Vision, David Feinberg, and the Minnesota Grand Challenges Project goals. Only three years later, 31
David’s artistic methodologies had arrived in Spain, Colombia, Perú, Ecuador and U.S. Latino communities. By 2017, David and I had formed an alliance that came to be one of the most innovative artistic projects generated by the Grand Challenges Research Grant Project on Social Justice. As our Grand Challenges reports indicated, art and theater became active and efficient tools to fight amnesia, apathy, xenophobia, discrimination, injustice, and accommodation. David, who did not speak Spanish or Portuguese and did not have previous knowledge of Latin American cultures now became one of the leaders of an avant-garde movement to recover historical memory by way of personal reminiscences filtered through art installations and deposited forever in Latin American theater narratives. There were many things David helped to recover, among them memories of the Holocaust that did not have deep roots in Latin America, except Argentina; views on the perilous journey toward freedom (Vietnam Boat People); a Southern journey to a remote jail in the Argentinian Patagonia and the meaning of freedom; a haunted woman artist who witnessed how 6,000 political individuals were massacred by Colombian paramilitaries; or a woman seated in a Bosnian park talking to a young guerrilla fighter who was killed the next day in the Bosnian conflict. As David interviewed each one of those survivors, his image as a human scholar and artist remained in all of us who shared this experience. One by one those foreigners, without any obligation to do so, embraced David as each of those highly sensitive sessions ended. They were not sure about what had happened, but one said, “Without David’s guidance and human kindness, my buried memories may have not been recoverable, even as I struggled with things I wanted to forget.” These words can serve to summarize not only the commitment but also the impact of David in the life of seasoned theater artists and political activists. As a distinguished professor soon to retire, David’s academic reputation is superb and overwhelming, and yet, he is very humble, kind, and shy. Nevertheless, he will be remembered as a professional who went way beyond the classroom into the inner spaces where people define themselves. I know first-hand that he traveled to many sites to conduct 32
research, contacting intellectuals and artists, and learning how theatre and artistic expressions uncover issues of social justice and human rights. I saw him lead a group of American citizens over a plateau where the FARC guerrillas fought the last battle against the Colombian Army. I saw David’s students interview former guerrilla fighters tired of years of war. I saw David’s students interview women victims as they continued their struggle through the courts. For me, David’s objectives were to change the lives of his students through unique educational experiences that involved engaged research about marginalized practices, a strong commitment to underrepresented groups, and a focus on human rights advocacy. These students acquired an understanding of those issues in a manner that would not have been possible within the classroom. The Grand Challenge Program in Colombia constituted a truly innovative, state-of-the-art activity that has profoundly impacted the lives of David’s students in a life-changing manner. As one of the colleagues in our department stated in a letter: “Even in a university that provides so many exciting educational opportunities to its undergraduate students, Prof. Feinberg shines as a bright light that illuminates issues of social justice and human rights. That light shines on the path of many of his students as he guides them into deeper knowledge, experience, and involvement with such issues.” In sum, I can say that Prof. David Feinberg is a rare community-engaged professor and researcher; he is committed to innovative education through the creation of sustainable bridges between this institution of higher learning, international artistic communities, and human rights organizations in four continents. It is my honor to be his colleague and even better, his friend.
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Luis Ramos-Garcia is Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota. He received the President’s Award for Outstanding Service, the GPS Alliance Award for Global Engagement, the Corporación Colombiana de Teatro Award, and Peru’s Ministry of Culture Award. He is a Grand Challenges Research Project Principal Investigator.
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hardboard, 16 x 20 in.
1894), 2016, Graphite on
(Great Hinckley Fire of
The Baby Sollie Finer
David Feinberg,
David Feinberg, Kaddish for the Immigrant’s Son, 1987, Acrylic on linen, 82 x 148 in.
Voice to Vision A Chronological List of Participants, 2002 - 2021
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 36
David Feinberg (director) Beth Andrews, (co-director), narrator – V2V 5-11) Stephen Feinstein (producer/team member - V2V 1-4) Joe Grosnacht (storyteller/Holocaust [Poland] - V2V 1) Murray Brandys (storyteller/Holocaust [Poland] - V2V 1-2) Vince Caro (videographer/director – V2V 1) Ryan Friar (graduate student team member – V2V 1) Taylor Costello (undergrad student team member – V2V 1) Agus Nurhema (undergrad student team member – V2V 1) Ann Cossette (undergrad student team member – V2V 1) Emily Widi (undergrad student team member – V2V 1) Laura Krueger (undergrad student team member – V2V 1-2) Katie Novak (undergrad student team member – V2V 1-2) Chad Maender (undergrad student team member – V2V 1-2) Lucy Smith (storyteller/Holocaust [Poland] – V2V 2) Sabina Zimering MD (storyteller/Holocaust [Poland] – V2V 2) Gina Kugler (storyteller/Poland – V2V 2) Sheila O’Connor (professor of literature Hamline College/author – V2V 2) Diane Grace Goodman (volunteer team member – V2V 1-4) Aviel Goodman (volunteer photographer – V2V 1-4) Alice Tuza (storyteller/Rwanda – V2V 3) Floriane Robbins-Brown (storyteller/Rwanda – V2V 3) Max Goodman (storyteller/Holocaust [Romania] – V2V 3) Edith Goodman (storyteller/Holocaust [Romania] – V2V 3) Caroline Kent (graduate student team member – V2V 2-5)
26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.
Kelly Frush (undergrad student team member – V2V 3) Solomon Atta (undergrad student team member – V2V 3-4) Peter Lommen (volunteer artist - V2V 2-15) Andy Kastenberg (undergrad student team member – V2V 3) Dorjay Sakya (storyteller/Tibet – V2V 4) Margot De Wilde (storyteller/Holocaust [Germany] – V2V 4) Nhia Lee (storyteller/Hmong [Laos] – V2V 4) Yer Vang Lee (storyteller/Hmong [Laos] – V2V 4) Pa Houa Lee (storyteller/Hmong [Laos] – V2V 4) Sara Lee (storyteller/Hmong [Laos] – V2V 4) Stephanie Thompson (undergrad student team member – V2V 4-5) Kelsey Bosch (assistant videographer/team member – V2V 4) Jamie Winter Dawson (undergrad student team member – V2V 4) Amy Waksmonski (videographer/director/tech advisor – V2V 2-6) Rodney Massey (volunteer team member – V2V 4-5) Ryan Deshler (videographer/director – V2V 2/technical advisor – V2V 4) David Hamlow (graduate student assistant editor – V2V 2) Adam Streeter (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) Margaret Gavian (graduate student psychology – V2V 4) Rakhi Bisen (undergrad student team member – V2V 4) Patricia Frazier (psychology professor/team member – V2V 4) Joyce Lyon (art professor/project consultant – V2V 2) Veronica Williams (undergrad student team member – V2V 4) Lauren Haberly (undergrad student team member – V2V 4) Nile Eckhoff (undergrad student team member/DVD cover designer- V2V 4) Malorie Binn (undergrad student team member – V2V 4) David Jordan Harris (director of Rimon/musician/singer/narrator – V2V 3-4) Alan Kagan (professor emeritus/violin – Twin Cities Public Television Special) Krista Palmquist (singer – V2V 2) Jean-Paul Samputu (singer [Rwanda] – V2V 3) Joseph Feinberg (musical composer – V2V 1) Midge McCloy (musical composer – V2V 4) Tom Bartsch (piano – V2V 2) Ellen J Kennedy (interim director Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies – V2V 5) Augustino Ting Mayai (storyteller/Sudan – V2V 5) Bunkhean Chhun (storyteller/Cambodia – V2V 5) Bounna Chuun (storyteller/Cambodia – V2V 5) Fred Amram (storyteller/Holocaust [Germany] – V2V 5) Alice Musabende (storyteller/Rwanda – V2V 5) Christine Stark (storyteller/Native American – V2V 5) Michael Carlson (editor – V2V 4) Vera Carlson (editor – V2V 4) Ali Abdulkadir (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) Bonnie Brabson (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) Mary George (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) Jason Krumrai (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) 37
72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 38
Rachel Mosey (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) Rowan Pope (graduate student team member – V2V 5-8) Ryan Rasmussen (undergrad student team member/iron pour sculptors – V2V 5) Nicole Rodriguez (undergrad student team member – V2V 5) Evelyn Lennon (consultant/Center for Victims of Torture – V2V 5) Mark Biedrzycki (undergrad student team member/iron pour sculptors – V2V 5) Ariel Strichartz (storyteller/grandchild of Armenian survivor – V2V 6) Beth Warner (storyteller/grandchild of Armenian survivor – V2V 6) Lou Ann Matossian, Director of Cultural and External Affairs, Armenian Cultural Organization of Minnesota Dragana Vidovic (storyteller/Bosnia – V2V 6) Chris Kiberian (storyteller/Armenia – V2V 6) Daliya Jokondo (storyteller/child of Sudanese survivor – V2V 6) Micki Naiman (storyteller/child of Holocaust survivor [Germany] – V2V 6) Mort Naiman (storyteller/child of Holocaust survivor [Brussels] – V2V 6) Joanna Sussman (storyteller/child of Holocaust survivor [Germany] – V2V 6) Bonnie Brabson (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Chris Charbonneau (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Laura Zelle (storyteller/Holocaust [Greece] – V2V 6) Joni Christenson (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Sarah Hiatt (undergrad student team member – V2V 6-7) Tena Patterson (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Michael Zittlow (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Tat’Yana Kenigsberg (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Daisy Giles (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Julia Irwin (undergrad student team member – V2V 6) Mike Newman (storyteller/child of WW2 saboteur – V2V 7) Claus Newman (storyteller/child of WW2 saboteur – V2V 7) Nancy Newman (storyteller/wife of Mike Newman – V2V 7) Emily Weber (undergrad student team member – V2V 7) Dylan Hansen (undergrad student team member/graphic designer- V2V 7-9) Michele Coppin (volunteer team member –V2V 7-9) Antony Lakey (graduate student team member – V2V 7-9) Carissa Hansen (undergrad student writer/archiver – V2V 7-9) Bruno Chaouat (director Holocaust and Holocaust survivor [France]-V2V 8) Genocide Studies/storyteller/son of Sarah Chaout Sarah Chaouat (storyteller/Holocaust [France]/mother of Bruno – V2V 8) Rachel Quast (undergrad student team member – V2V 8) Sabine Darling (undergrad student team member – V2V 8) Tess Weinberg (undergrad student team member – V2V 8) Carlos Satizábal (poet/storyteller/Columbia – V2V 9A, D) Luis Ramos-Garcia (professor of Spanish/storyteller/Peru – V2V 9A,B,C,D) Patricia Ariza (playwright/storyteller/Columbia – V2V 9) (A, D) Arístides Vargas (playwright/storyteller/Argentina – V2V 9(B) Ernesto Silva (professor of Spanish/storyteller/Peru – V2V 9, B,C) Demetrio Anzaldo González (professor of Spanish/storyteller/Mexico – V2V 9, B, C)
116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158.
Davide Varnevali (playwright/storyteller/Italy – V2V 9C) Gerson Guerra (actor/storyteller/Ecuador – V2V 9C) Paulo Guerra (computer designer/storyteller/Ecuador – V2V 9C) Pepe Bablé (puppeteer/theater director/storyteller/Spain – V2V 9C) Eduardo Cabrera, (professor of Spanish/theater director/storyteller/ Argentina – V2V 9C) Dr. Gary Christenson (chief medical officer Boynton Health Services/ storyteller – V2V 9C,D) Fredy Frisancho (storyteller/Peru – V2V 9C) Nelsy Echávez-Solano, Colombia (professor of Spanish/storyteller/ Columbia – V2V 9C) Leeanne McKenna (undergrad student team member – V2V 9) Sara Feinberg (videographer – V2V 8-11) Meng Tang, China (professor/videographer – V2V 6-8) Diana Albrecht (undergrad student team member – V2V 9) Tessa Loeffler (UROP undergrad student team member – V2V 9-11) Rachel Lindholm (undergrad student team member – V2V 9-10) Emma Dunn (undergrad student team member – V2V 9-10) Olivia Novotny (UROP undergrad student team member – (V2V 9-11) Esther Winthrop (storyteller/Holocaust [Greece] – V2V 10) Harvey Winthrop (storyteller – V2V 10) Michelle Englund (volunteer team member – V2V 10-11) Kimchi Hoang (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Anh Tran (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Boa Hoang (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Cam Tu Nguyen (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Hien Vo (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Hung Le (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Luong La (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Martin Wurzinger, skipper of the Mayaroma, rescued 89 Vietnamese at sea Thanh Vu (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Thomas Cau (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Vong Duong (storyteller/Vietnam – V2V 11) Sima Shahriar, Iran (storyteller – V2V 12) 9C Kristin Anton (UROP undergrad student team member – V2V 9-11, ) Jane Bollweg (undergrad student team member – V2V 10-11) Paula Pergament (volunteer team member – V2V 9-11) Annie Nickell (undergrad student team member – V2V 11) Julia Breidenbach (undergrad student team member – V2V 11) Jennifer Barnett Hensel (undergrad student team member/volunteer team member – V2V 2-3, 10-12 Michelle Stahlmann, volunteer artist, V2V 12 and 9C Alan Slacter, Exhibition Installer, 2014- present Tu-Nguyen Phan, V2V XI and V2V IX D J. Wren Supac, V2V IX D, Co-Director Professor Alex Lubet, music, V2V VIII Carmina Martinez, Colombia, V2V 9D 39
159. Luis (Poli) Hernando Forero, Colombia, V2V 9D 160. Nohra González Reyes, Colombia, V2V 9D 161. Karen Roa, Colombia, V2V 9D 162. Camila Scudeler, Brazil, Colombia, V2V 9D 163. Carlos Robles, Colombia, V2V 9D 164. Zachary Schwab, Freshman Research grant, S18 165. Maykayla Schumacher, Freshman Research grant, UROP grant S18- S 2021 166. Shayna Allen, U of MN, internship, Colombia trip 167. Andy Phu, Vietnam, V2V 11 168. Dat Nguyen, Vietnam, V2V 11 169. Orceny Monta, Mother of Soacha 170. Maria Ubilerma Sanabria Lopez, Mother of Soacha 171. Fanny Palacios Romero, Mother of Soacha 172. Luz Marina Bernal Parr, Mother of Soacha 173. Lucero Carmona, , Mother of Soacha 174. Karleen Gardner Mia director of Learning Innovation, V2V 11 175. Matthew Perry, Volunteer 176. Bly and Rowan Pope, V2V9, Mothers of SOACHA 177. Nora Doyle, Freshman Research, S 2019 178. Jordan Schmelter, Freshman Research, S 2019 179. Shahriyar Jamshidi, Musician, storyteller, 2018-20, Kurdish kamanche 180. Alberto Justiniano Director Teatro del Pueblo, in collaboration with the Pregones theater, Bronx NY, 2018-20 181. Janilka Glorimar, storyteller, Pregones theater, Bronx NY, 2018-20 182. Jorge Merced Associate Artistic Director of Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Storyteller, 2018-20 183. Beth Feinberg, proofreader for Voice to Vision 184. Adolfo Menendez, video editor for Voice to Vision 2019, 2020 185. Dr. Carlos E. Sepúlveda (COLOMBIA), National Pedagogical University, Bogotá. Colombia. Theater Director, 2019-, (COLOMBIA), District University of Bogotá. Colombia 186. Valerie Osorio Restrepo, University of Texas at Austin, Doctoral candidate (Colombia.) 187. Olivia Nortwen, UROP grant 2019, 2020, Spanish translater and artist 188. Dat Nguyen, Voice to Vision XIII, storyteller, 2019 189. Andy Phu, Voice to Vision XIII, storyteller, 2019 190. Thu Pham, a boat survivor from Vietnam, storyteller, 2019191. Paul Bashah, Ethiopia, Storyteller, 2019192. Rita Morris, Artist, Duluth, MN-2019-, The Two Headed Dog drawing 193. Steve Smith, Artist, 2019 Forest Lake, MN 194. Stefanie Suhon, DFRACS, student, spring, 2020 195. Benay McNamara, DFRACS, student, spring, 2020 196. Reid Luskey, DFRACS, student, spring, 2020 197. Dr. Brenda Child, Northrop Professor of American Studies, U of MN 198. Steve Premo, the Mille Lacs Band’s most well- known artist, husband of Dr. Brenda Child, 2020, 2021 199. Luis Figueroa, DFRACS, student, spring 2021 200. Jaime Pedregon, DFRACS, student, spring 2021 40
This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition Divide Up Those in Darkness from the Ones Who Walk in Light, presented by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, September 14 – December 11, 2021. Compilation is copyright the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota. The essays are copyright the authors. The images are copyright the artists, or as noted in the captions. Graphic design by Emily Swanberg. The Katherine E. Nash Gallery is a research laboratory for the practice and interpretation of the visual arts -- a place where we examine our assumptions about the past and suggest possibilities for the future. Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Department of Art College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota 405 21st Avenue So., Minneapolis, MN 55455
Katherine E. Nash Gallery University of Minnesota 405 21st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455