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.
Marysia’s Majątek
(Marysia’s Treasure)
When lockdown began six weeks ago, I decided to bring mum to her little hut in the forest. She calls the hut her ‘majątek’ or ‘treasure.’
Mum will be 96 this year. Or maybe 97 according to the Lodz ghetto records. During the war mum suffered greatly and lost her own mother at Auschwitz. At this terrible time she used to dream of escaping to a little hut in the forest. This is why she calls this hut her treasure.
Mum is very happy here and lacks nothing. She spends her day collecting twigs for the fire and doing her big project - sewing the words to her favourite song, 'Que Sera Sera, What Will Be Will Be' on her blanket.
A short film by Jane and Gil Korman
The tall trees, the blue sky....they all belong to us.....
 Visitor's book in the hut Volume 2 (Started 2014) |  Mum's inscription in the Visitor's book, started in 1975 |
|---|---|
 My rough translation of Mum's inscription |  Mum and Dad at the hut |
 Mum and me May 2020 |  Marysia's Majantek - carved at the entrance to the hut |
 Inside the hut |  Pointing to Marysia's Majantek |
 Sewing the words to 'Que Sera Sera' on her blanket |  |
 Nearly finished |  ‘Now I am old, so very old, I ask my daughter to take care of me. Stay a little longer, Sit a little nearer, These last moments are precious to me.’ And the well- known and relevant chorus: ‘Que sera sera, Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see, Que sera sera, What will be will be’. |
 The land outside the hut was used as the prop for the project 'Whistle While you Work' |  |
 The trees, the blue sky...they all have been for us. |