The Outremont Gallery presents A World Revived, an exhibition of photographs by Agnieszka Traczewska taken within Hasidic Jewish communities around the world. Exceptional photographs of daily life of Hasidim taken over 15 years by this Polish artist thanks to very privileged access.
Agnieszka Traczewska is not Hasidic. Based in New York, she was born a Catholic and grew up in Krakow, not far from an old neighborhood of Hasidic Jews. “I knew absolutely nothing about them and their traditions,” she said. But I knew that before the Second World War, there were 65,000 in my city and that after the war, the survivors had left the country. When I grew up, I saw traces of their presence, cemeteries, synagogues. I had the impression that the existence of this part of the history of Krakow could also be eradicated. »
The photographer was first interested in the Hasidim of Polish origin who returned to Poland to rekindle their roots, in particular by visiting Jewish cemeteries. She published a first book, Returns, illustrating these returns of Hasidim to the native land of their ancestors. Then, she widened her interest.
The photos on display were taken within Hasidic communities in Brooklyn, Israel, Belgium and Poland. Not only do they show great technical mastery, but they also immerse us in the intimacy of Hasidic families as is rarely possible, given their very private and communal way of life.
After having forged very strong ties with Hasidim for years, the artist was able to attend weddings and ceremonies of homage to the ancestors. She was even able, in a bathroom, to photograph a New York father who shortened the edges of his son’s twists with a candle.
These images show religious celebrations, Hasidic Jews descended from a Holocaust survivor praying inside a gas chamber in Auschwitz, Poland. Shabbat and Hanukkah rituals. Children enjoying Purim, the Jewish holiday when the rules are relaxed. And the moving scene of two young Hasidim who find themselves alone in their room for the first time, after their union ceremony. A photograph rewarded with an award from National Geographic magazine.
The exhibition also illustrates how these communities of large families are growing all over the world, hence the title of the exhibition, A world revived. Agnieszka Traczewska’s work will soon continue in Montreal, as she has developed ties there with the Hasidim of Outremont and Blainville.
This presentation at the Galerie d’Outremont was produced on the initiative and thanks to the collaboration of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Montreal. The opening took place on April 18, the international day of remembrance of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War. This day also coincided with the 80th anniversary of the uprising of the inhabitants of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1943.
Poland’s support for this exhibition is part of the country’s desire to give Jews back their full place in society, even if there are not many Jews left in Poland compared to the 3.3 million who live there. lived before 1939, i.e. 10% of the population. The horror of the concentration camps set up in Poland between 1941 and 1945 meant that there were only 380,000 Polish Jews left in 1945. “Many of the survivors left after World War II because they did not want to live on the land where members of their family had been exterminated,” said the Polish consul in Montreal, Dariusz Wisniewski.
Agnieszka Traczewska’s exhibition does not evoke political and social issues. It’s not about her, she told us. His approach is documentary and sociological. We can have our own approach to religious questions and appreciate his artistic work, because it challenges our civic sense to accept the social diversity of our Western societies, even to rejoice in it. So that harmony and peace arise from respect for differences.
