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.
Dancing Auschwitz
Love, Hate & Healing
After I uploaded Dancing Auschwitz to Youtube, the reaction to the video clip was overwhelming. Initially Neo Nazis and White Supremacist groups from Hungary, The Netherlands, Russia and the United States responded with a wave of hate-mail. Many others also disapproved, believing it trivialised the victims’ suffering at the hands of the Nazis, as well as breaking a taboo of dancing at a sacred site. However, many more throughout the world sent messages of love and support.
But most surprising and touching were those who had been carrying the emotional weight of their family's past. Viewing the video clip allowed them to laugh, cry and ultimately experience a deep sense of healing.
The following book, LOVE, HATE & HEALING, is a compilation of some of the emails I received.