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Between Two Worlds

Between Two Worlds

Monika Krajewska
„Between Two Worlds”

An exhibition inspired by The Dybbuk by S. An-sky
Galicia Jewish Museum Bookshop in the High Synagogue, ul. Józefa 38

The form of a papercutting combining symbolic motifs, ornaments and text has been rooted in the Jewish tradition for centuries; it especially flourished in Eastern Europe in the 19th century.

Monika Krajewska deals with Jewish art. Initially, together with her husband Stanisław, she traveled around Poland photographing the surviving Jewish monuments and registering tombstone reliefs using the technique of frottage (rubbing). The fruit of this work and studies on symbolic motifs in Jewish art were the photo albums, Time of Stones (1982) and A Tribe of Stones (1993), as well as exhibitions, lectures, and workshops in Poland, USA, Israel, and other places. By studying the language of symbols, she learned about various areas of Jewish art, including the papercuts from the past. She has been creating papercuttings for over 20 years. Some of her works, especially the mizrahs, plaques for the eastern wall, are close to the traditional form; others, such as the series “The Tatras and Psalms”, “Burning”, and “The Dybbuk”, are her own interpretations of Jewish texts and symbols. She also combines papercuts with collage, frontage and photography, and with rubbings from grave reliefs in the series “These are the generations” with rubbings from grave reliefs. The Hebrew texts are cut out or calligraphed. As an educator, she conducts workshops and lectures presenting Jewish tradition through art, among others at festivals of Jewish culture and at Warsaw‘s Center for Yiddish Culture.