Honouring Esther: revisited
Sunday 11 September, Honouring Esther, an installation, Bath Jewish Burial Ground 11.00-16.00
A sound and moving image installation in the old cottage alongside the Burial Ground, the ‘prayer room’. The installation is curated from digital work originally presented as part of the Forced Walks: Honouring Esther exhibitions. The Somerset cycle of walks in 2015 finished here on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It will be poignant to reflect on the work today: after Brexit, with the far right in power and close to power across Europe and as the Home Office’s Hostile Climate continues undiminished. At the time we were shocked how our walking-in-witness referencing a Nazi Death March appeared to visually resonate with the tv shots of refugees walking through the fields of eastern Europe.
What will we make of it seven years on?
2015 walk ended at Bath Jewish Burial Ground
The route of the opening two-day walk for Honouring Esther was determined by the transposition of the route of a Nazi death march to Somerset. We walked on public rights of way as close to that route as possible. The project retraced part of the journey Lorna’s mother, Esther was forced to take from Lodz, Poland, via Auschwitz, to the infamous concentration camp at Bergen Belsen. Walking 70 years later in Somerset it became our journey too. Where the line of the route in Somerset crossed the imagined line of the death march we stopped, listened to testimony, talked, asked questions and shared. In 2016, a year later, we hosted a further walk on the actual route of the death March in Germany. More than a walk-in-witness, the cycle of walks inspired by Esther Brunstein’s commitment to social justice, the project continues to generate profound conversations about the resurgence of fascism and threats to human rights.
Short immersive films and soundscapes
The installation consists of a series of short immersive films and soundscapes produced using field footage gathered by walkers from the walks in Germany and Somerset, including media gathered by a team from Bath Spa University. We are really excited to be showing the work again in Bath and we extend a welcome to all, especially those who those who walked with us. We will be there through the day. The Honouring Esther archive is here.
We are grateful to the Bath Jewish Burial Ground for the invitation to exhibit as part of the Combe Down Art trail (venue 7), and for the continuing support of Bath Spa University for this project.