Day 4: Jewish Museum

On the fourth day of the course we spent a full afternoon at the Jewish Museum, which is both an impressive building and an impressive exhibit. Visitors are meant to be put into various emotional states as they move through the building. Form and content really fall together here.

It's not my camera that's off-kilter, but the building itself. You can't walk through the bottom floor of the museum without feeling uneasy. 

Herr Boyd in the "Garden of Exile" which share interesting similarities with the newer Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe (later in the week). The bottom level of the museum is structured around various axes; the "Axis of Emigration" leads to this garden, which is a mixed blessing: life but somehow more alone and alienated than before.

The building has various "voids": the emptiness is a marker for life and humanity lost. This void is filled with a sculpture/installation called "Fallen Leaves." The disconcerting faces are made of steel; the choice to walk out on them is confusing. I couldn't do it myself. Here is a link to short clip I captured of the two people above walking off. I'll let you decide what it sounds. like.

The other floors of the museum are a lot less... difficult. There is a lot of interaction and even games. Herr Frau Williams and Fray Chambers see what they would have looked like around the turn of the century (as a man with a huge Schnurrbart).