Som Chai meets my family & friends
I am so excited that Som Chai is now in Oz and has been granted a partner visa.
He's met my family and friends, and even come along to Uni with me.
It is wonderful having him here with me - no more lonely nights or awkward outings on my own!
I can throw my wish list in the fire now because he fulfils all my dreams. I am so proud of him - he is charismatic, generous and kind, and he is also Budhist and a meditator!
I wondered whether there was a difference between art made by a human and art made by a machine? So I made a fan that painted, and I became a painting human fan.
Conclusion: there was no difference.
Just an Ordinary Peasant is based on my uncle’s experience as an inmate at Treblinka extermination camp in 1944. His memoir recounts that while being forced to carry corpses from the gas chambers to an open-air pyre, he was handed a sack which held little children who were still alive. The guard commanded the sack be thrown into the fire. The woman I play in Just an Ordinary Peasant is a hybrid character created from the memoirs of my uncle, my parents and my own research. She sings and dances and also throws a sack of babies into the fire. This piece explores my own biases as well as questions the culpability of ‘ordinary people’ who were accomplices to the atrocities carried out during the Third Reich.
Jane Korman
Art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My first word was ‘yellow’.
I was born in Melbourne to Adolek and Marysia Kohn, both survivors of Auschwitz. They had left Poland in their early twenties and migrated to faraway Australia to build a new life.
Growing up, I knew that my parents had been through terrible times. But rather than allowing their past to weigh them down, they filled our home with friends, music, laughter and stories. They made up for lost time by working hard, enjoying picnics in the countryside, throwing parties and dancing late into the night.
As a child, I was always drawing and painting. I was often left with my pencils and paints while my parents went out to work or meet friends. Looking back, I realise how much their lives and the stories they told inspired me and shaped my art.
Over the years, I have worked across many different mediums, including painting, photography, graphic design, Judaica, murals, furniture, video and eventually performance art.
My art draws on personal experiences, particularly my parents’ Holocaust history, and reflects my concerns about antisemitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of bias. I like to explore these subjects in unexpected ways, sometimes using humour and playfulness to challenge assumptions.