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FiberAlchemy.com
Sacred Fiber Art by Elyn Aviva
In Memoriam
This work is a conceptual art project of 27 unique felted vessels. Each of these vessels represents a medieval Jew whose inscribed tombstone was once located in Montjuïc cemetery, Girona. Twenty-six of these broken gravestones, etched with partially illegible names and dates, are on display in the Museum of the History of the Jews in Girona. They are a poignant reminder of the human desire to be immortal versus the ephemeral briefness of our lives—the ongoing dialogue between permanence (stone) and fragility (humans).
Once, these people belonged to a thriving Jewish community in Girona. But for over 500 years there has been no Jewish community here and no one to visit their graves. All the Jews in Spain were expelled in 1492.
I have made these vessels to remember them—as broken shells, silent screams, gravestones tipped on their sides… As seedcases, husks… fragile yet protective, emptied of content but not of meaning. As long as the dead are remembered by the living, they are not forgotten. The Kabbalah says that at Creation, all was perfect, but then the vessels were shattered. It is our task, through Tikkun Olam, to restore the vessels and heal the world.