Sharing light takes shape

NCJWA’s Council House was at capacity last night as NCJWA NSW facilitated a clay making workshop for Sharing Light, a public art installation that will see 5000 handmade vessels, each housing a solar-powered light, laid out in a grid across Archer Park in Bondi this December.

As the sun sets, the vessels will illuminate, marking one year since the Bondi Beach attack.

Nathalie Samia, president of NCJWA NSW told The AJN that people were so keen to be involved, extra tables were brought in at the last minute to accommodate everyone. 

Sharing Light is led by artists Marisa Purcell and Rena Shein with academic and creative practitioner Vicki Leibowitz, and is supported by Chabad of Bondi’s Rabbi Yehoram Ulman. It has received seed funding from Waverley Council’s Local Creative Collaborations program and from Victims of Terrorism Australia, with the artists seeking further support through tax-deductible donations via the Australian Cultural Fund.

Samia opened the evening with a moment of remembrance for the 15 people who were murdered at Bondi, before turning to the room itself, which included Jews and non-Jews, women from the leadership of major Jewish organisations, children and even some men. Samia shared that for some upcoming workshops, attendees include three generations of the same family. 

Survivors of the Bondi attack were also among those in the room, and it was to them that Samia directed her words, speaking of the circles that make up the response of our community to the attack. 

“We think about those circles not just as concentric circles of vulnerability and impact,” Samia said. “We also think of them as concentric circles of love, and you are at the centre of that circle of love.

“Around you are people who love you, people who care about you, people who are here to support you, and then around them more and more again. Perhaps that is also what we are making tonight: more concentric circles of love”.

Purcell, who lives in Bondi but is not Jewish, said she felt powerless after the attack. She was inspired by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, who in 2007 invited the public to lay 24,000 candles across a square in Bogota.

“I was so moved by the spontaneous gatherings: people singing, people telling stories, just people coming together,” she said of the weeks that followed. “As artists, we were like, ‘What can we do?'”

Of the workshops themselves, Purcell said they are specifically designed to be non-denominational and non-hierarchical. 

“We don’t know how many people this atrocity has impacted, and nor will we ever know. And part of the purpose of this project is to reach those people that we might not ever know how to reach” she said. “Because it’s Bondi Beach, we imagine a lot of people will just drop by and walk by and discover it.” 

Shein, an art therapist who has worked with clay in Indigenous communities, guided participants through the process, asking the room to work quietly and treat the clay with intention. She described the vessels not as pinch pots but as offerings.

“When we work with clay, we are actually working with the most ancient forms of ourselves,” Shein said.

The atmosphere was one of warmth and quiet purpose. Chatter gave way to focus as hands moulded clay, and participants described a sense of ruach and connection at being part of something collective.

Groups from nursing homes to schools to surf life saving clubs have already taken part in workshops elsewhere. The NCJWA sessions continue through the month, and members of the public can also drop in to make vessels at Bondi Pavilion throughout September. 

Sharing Light will be on display at Archer Park, Bondi, from December 4 to 14.

For more information about the NCJWA workshops, visit events.humanitix.com/sharing-light-clay-vessel-making-workshops.

Follow Sharing Light on instagram: @sharinglight2026