The layers of remembrance
Marking Memory 'creates space for visitors to connect with both the personal and collective dimensions of Holocaust memory'
Contemporary Australian artist Kathy Temin is presenting a major exhibition at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, bringing together more than 20 years of work exploring memory, history and loss.
Marking Memory, which opened earlier this year, spans the museum’s Alter Family Special Exhibitions Gallery and draws on Temin’s longstanding Remembrance series – monumental sculptures crafted from faux fur, accompanied by sound and testimony.
The choice of material is deliberate.
Faux fur, with its associations of comfort and domesticity, sits in tension with the weight of what the works memorialise, creating an experience that is both intimate and confronting.
Temin, a professor of fine art at Monash University and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, has been practising as an artist since 1989 and rose to prominence locally and internationally in the 1990s. Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
In 2019, Temin transformed the home of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West into what Kardashian called “a winter wonderland Whoville”. West apparently discovered Temin when he saw an image of her earlier work My Monument: White Forest.
She has described remembrance as something layered and communal.
“Remembrance has many layers, stages, comes in a wide range of forms, takes you into different worlds, brings people together, generates community and is both private and collective.”
Melbourne Holocaust Museum CEO Dr Breann Fallon said the exhibition offered visitors a personal entry point into Holocaust memory.
“By bringing together sculpture, sound and testimony, this exhibition creates space for reflection on the enduring impact of the Holocaust and the importance of carrying these memories forward for future generations.”
For head of exhibitions and storytelling Dr Daniel Haumschild, there is a particular resonance of showing the work now.
“At a time when remembrance, reflection and understanding feel more urgent than ever, the exhibition creates space for visitors to connect with both the personal and collective dimensions of Holocaust memory.”
Marking Memory is at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum until July 12.