Walking into the Bondi Pavilion Art Gallery, you can feel the weight of December 14, 2025, but also a sense of hope.
It has been just five months since the Chanukah by the Sea terror attack that took 15 lives. In response, Shalom Collective and Waverley Council launched the project, Holding Light, bringing together 29 artists who have turned their grief into something visual.
Just before Shabbat came in, at the official launch of Holding Light, Waverley Council executive manager of arts, culture and events Tanya Goldberg told guests that Holding Light is one of the fastest exhibitions the council has ever put together because the need for the community to “connect, to share, process and respond creatively was obvious and profound”.
For Shalom Collective director of programs Rabbi Alon Meltzer, the exhibition is deeply personal. Meltzer lost two close friends in the attack, and his children’s classmates lost their fathers. But, he acknowledged, the community is now responding to the tragedy together.
“When I look at some of these pieces, I don’t see just mourning and tragedy. I see a Jewish future where we stand side by side with our Australian brothers and sisters,” he said.
The art itself ranges from the abstract to the deeply literal. Ella Dreyfus, who contributed a series called Nature Morte – Zikaron (Still Life – Remembrance), focused on the flowers left at the beachfront memorial. Dreyfus documented the bouquets as they dried in a warehouse, noting that the way they decay “resists the velocity of the news cycle”. Another piece, by an artist known as D-MO, titled The Height of a Small Table, is a simple but powerful photographic portrait of Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff. It shows Lazaroff standing on a round table just days after being released from hospital, where he had been treated for two gunshot wounds. D-MO says the work is about the “altered weight of a person who has returned from rupture”.
Aboriginal artist Munganbana Norman Miller travelled to Bondi to pay his respects and created Shining Lights: Fifteen Flames of Remembrance. Miller used 15 flames to represent the victims, mixing the symbolism of the Chanukah menorah with Aboriginal dot painting traditions to show that “light triumphs over darkness”. There is also a 12-part documentary series called Beyond Bondi by filmmaker Michael Puterflam, who worked with the families of the victims to make sure they were remembered for the “richness of their lives” rather than just the way they died.
One of the most moving parts of the show comes from its younger contributors. Local student Rocco Rosa, who is turning ten this year, painted a piece for Matilda who was the same age. Rosa says he kept thinking that she was “just a kid like me” and that even when things feel broken, “there can still be light”.
At the opening, Waverley Council mayor Will Nemesh reflected on the necessity of Holding Light.
“Holding Light is a reminder that art is a poignant communal language which speaks to us in ways that words cannot,” he said. “Every piece of art included as part of this exhibition is a show of resistance as well as resilience against living in fear and a reminder of our pledge to find the light wherever we can”.
Officially opening the exhibition, NSW Member for Coogee Marjorie O’Neill, became teary as she reflected not only on the friends lost at Bondi, but also the community and Jewish spirit that has been shown since.
“The artists in this exhibition have taken on an immense task. To explore grief without turning away from it, to hold memory without becoming overwhelmed by it, and to find threads of resilience even in the darkest of spaces,” she said, describing the exhibition as helping to shape the emotions that are often too big for words. “Holding Light is, at its heart, an act of a kind of presence, not a denial of what happened, but a refusal to let it be the only story.”
For Meltzer, the exhibition is part of the wider healing journey. While the process of recovery is slow, he does feel a sense of hope for what’s to come.
“We hope that thousands and thousands of people will come here and use this space as a place of reflection, of grieving and hopeful anticipation for what can be a brighter tomorrow.”
Holding Light is at the Bondi Pavilion Art Gallery until June 28, 2026. For more information, visit shalomcollective.com.au/whats-on/holding-light
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