Filmmakers document a lost exhibition
While Wendy Sharpe's exhibition Vu iz dos Gesele was never meant to be permanent, due to COVID lockdowns, no one ended up even seeing the temporary mural. Until now.
In 2021, Joshua and Karly Marks were approached by the Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM) to make a six-minute short film about a new work by Archibald-winning artist Wendy Sharpe.
The work, Vu iz dos Gesele (Yiddish for “Where is the little street”) would be in the form of a 40-metre mural, inspired by Sharpe’s 2019 tour in search of the lost Ukrainian villages in which her ancestors once lived.
Painted onto the walls of the SJM, it was intended to be temporary – exhibited for just three months. But an extended COVID-19 lockdown meant no visitors ever saw it.
Subsequent building works carried out on the museum saw holes cut into the concrete walls it was painted on. Some parts were painted over, while other parts were kept as the backdrop to new offices.
The work was never meant to last. Yet the exhibition’s title took on new meaning for people who had hoped to visit.
Joshua and Karly realised their film might now be the only way for people to get the full experience of the exhibition from creation to destruction.
Their shoot went from a planned “two half-days” to 23 days and editing was expanded from one week to 12 weeks. The self-described “wife-and-husband team”, who each graduated from Moriah, worked while their two-year-old daughter Hannah sang improvised songs about Sharpe to the tune of Baby Shark. They found ways to shoot when COVID restrictions kept them from the museum.
Producer Judy Menczel saw the potential for a half-hour version and came on board for the documentary, Wendy Sharpe: Site Unseen, which been picked up by the ABC.
The documentary will convey a full experience: the stories Sharpe told; the tune of the song she sang while painting, which is the title of the exhibition; the textures; the “paint on the floor” of the museum.
Joshua recalled Sharpe’s “lively, warm” character and the way she took the team “into her process”.
Jewish composer Sam Weiss will supply the film’s soundtrack.
Joshua and Karly say they were inspired by SJM resident historian (and Emeritus Professor) Konrad Kwiet’s remarks about the power of art in communicating history; and thanked Aviva Wolff and Roslyn Sugarman at the SJM for their support.
Although the couple has managed to do most of the work “off our own bat”, the growth of the project far beyond budget has pushed them to seek crowdfunding to cover post-production costs.
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