{"id":40725,"date":"2023-02-24T01:57:17","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T09:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=40725"},"modified":"2023-02-22T15:14:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T23:14:48","slug":"artfully-exploring-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/02\/24\/artfully-exploring-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Artfully exploring heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lindsey Tyne Johnson (photo from Lindsey Tyne Johnson)<\/em><\/p>\n

Returning from a Birthright trip to Israel in 2019, artist Lindsey Tyne Johnson was inspired. Learning the aleph-bet, she made a laser-engraved spirit board in Hebrew, but accidentally arranged the letters left to right, as they would be in English, and not right to left, as Hebrew is read. The mistake spurred her not only to create the exhibit Hebrew Spelled Backwards, which is on display at the Kamloops Art Gallery until April 1, but to explore her cultural heritage, from which she had been estranged, and learn more about Judaism.<\/p>\n

The other, more sombre, inspiration for the Hebrew spirit board and the exhibit was, Johnson writes in a blog post, a \u201cdesire to feel closer to my brother after the events that left him homeless and his eventual passing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBorn with the name Liam, my brother changed his name to his chosen Hebrew name, Noah as an adult,\u201d she writes on her website (lindseytynejohnson.com<\/a>). \u201cMy mother had mentioned our Jewish ancestry to us as children, but my brother was the only person to explore it\u2026. I can still remember it as what my mother called \u2018one of his many phases\u2019 in his late teenage years. She chalked it up to a phase, but it\u2019s the string I use to tie memories of my brother together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother was the first person I witnessed who explored their Jewish heritage,\u201d Johnson told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cWhen he moved to Vancouver in his early 20s, he legally changed his name to his Hebrew name, Noah. He struggled a lot with his mental health, and there were times when I felt like I was losing the brother I grew up with. It was an attempt to feel closer to him that I went on Birthright and had a bat mitzvah. I wanted to remember the part of him that was happy, passionate and excited about life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother lost his life to fentanyl in 2021. It was devastating and broke my family apart,\u201d said Johnson, who has two other siblings. \u201cMany struggle to understand substance abuse\/mental illness\u2019s connection to generational or cyclical trauma. It\u2019s unfair to look down upon those who might suffer from those things. I try my best to advocate for the destigmatization of mental illness where I can, though I\u2019ve had to be careful not to let others\u2019 ideas also negatively affect my mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

While not a large exhibit, Hebrew Spelled Backwards is powerful, thought-provoking in a serious way, but also using humour. For the exhibit\u2019s images, Johnson explains on her website, \u201cThe sandy colour palette was chosen as a tribute to the desert, a significant location in Jewish history and culture. I use digital media to blend traditional Jewish motifs with modern techniques, creating a dynamic visual experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson said, \u201cLike many artists, my process is sporadic and requires a particular head space to create something I\u2019m happy with. I often have ideas for pieces while doing mundane daily activities; if I don\u2019t write them down, they\u2019re lost forever. I practise a lot of sequential art, which is usually silly comics about everyday life, but they\u2019re generally never seen by other humans. My style reflects the graphic novels I like to consume. I can\u2019t help but be inspired by artists like Craig Thompson and Marjane Satrapi, both visually and thematically. My dream is to produce a graphic novel one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hebrew Spelled Backwards exhibit comprises not only Johnson\u2019s artwork, but her voice. Each picture has a QR code and viewers can hear Johnson give explanations of the Hebrew words and some context for the images, making the exhibit more accessible and inclusive. The illustrations variously include Jewish symbols and\/or Hebrew text, supernatural elements, pop art iconography (a Warholesque can of Birthright\u2019s Instant Bat-Mitzvah, for example) and current topics of concern, like rapper Ye\u2019s antisemitic comments, poignantly drawn as a short series of cellphone text messages from a mom to her child that ends with the child asking, \u201cmum, why is ye mad at us?\u201d This is one of the works that, as the exhibit description reads, \u201cexamines the complexities of identifying as Jewish and the fear and uncertainty that often come with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a couple of fears about identifying myself as Jewish,\u201d Johnson told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cInitially, when diving into Jewish culture and Judaism as a religion, I was afraid people might not think I was \u2018Jewish enough,\u2019 since only one of my parents has Jewish ancestry. My siblings and I were raised without Jewish traditions or education\u2026. Having a bat mitzvah really helped with that fear, though. I\u2019m also grateful that I\u2019ve never really encountered anyone from the Jewish communities I\u2019ve belonged to that has made me feel that way.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>
\u201cRaeF\u201d by Lindsey Tyne Johnson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe other part of that fear was that people would think differently of me or assume certain tropes or ideologies about me if I publicly identified myself as Jewish. This is an unfortunate reality I\u2019ve experienced, even if subtly. Most commonly, people think I\u2019m OK with antisemitic jokes or jokes that involve the Holocaust. It\u2019s an exhausting thing to experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting together the exhibit has allowed Johnson not only to explore her fears, but also her own biases.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreating these pieces required me to reflect on the experiences of people like Batsheva Dueck (aka Cynical Duchess, a modest fashion content creator) or more conservative Jews, who experience more assumptions made about them based on their dress or religious beliefs,\u201d she said. \u201cSince working on this exhibition, I\u2019ve been more sensitive to times when I\u2019ve excused antisemitic values expressed by my peers or acquaintances. When I lived in Brooklyn, I lived with someone who spoke quite negatively about Hasidic communities. This has been an excellent opportunity to witness my biases and encourage others to reflect on their biases or assumptions, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also allowed me to tie other pieces of my identity together,\u201d she continued. \u201cI\u2019ve been able to connect my Irish ancestry with my Jewish ancestry, for example. It has given me a sense of wholeness or completeness and I\u2019ve accepted that I can be many things all at the same time and I\u2019ve accepted that that\u2019s OK. We all contain multitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson went to Ireland this past summer to visit where her Ashkenazi family moved to in the 19th century, and \u201cto visit the Irish Jewish Museum and Waterford treasures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was probably in the fourth grade when my mother talked to my siblings and me about it,\u201d said Johnson of first learning about her Jewish heritage. \u201cIt was after I had come home and talked about how we were learning about World War II at school. It was surreal to hear my mother, an immigrant from England, talk about a side of our ancestry that had never really been discussed before. I didn\u2019t understand what it meant at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson herself has lived many places. She was born in Edmonton in 1993, but her family moved to Saskatchewan and then Prince George, B.C., shortly after.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent most of my youth in Prince George but moved to Dawson City, Yukon, as soon as I could save up enough money to attend the Yukon School of Visual Arts,\u201d she said. \u201cYukon SOVA is a one-year foundational arts program. Still, I decided to stay in the Yukon upon completion and remained in the territory for about five years before I moved to Brooklyn in 2018. I was in Brooklyn for only half a year before moving to Kamloops to be closer to my family, but it made a lasting impression. Going from a territory of 35,000 people to my neighbourhood in Williamsburg with four times that amount was dizzying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson said she loves the Kamloops Jewish community. \u201cI joined shortly after moving to Kamloops from Brooklyn and felt incredibly welcomed,\u201d she said. \u201cThe [Okanagan Jewish Community Centre] president, Heidi Coleman, is a huge inspiration and comfort to me. It\u2019s pretty relaxed in terms of how often we have gatherings. We don\u2019t have a synagogue or a place to meet, so we usually celebrate holidays at someone\u2019s house. The \u2018younger\u2019 (20 to 30 years old) of us have a close bond, and I often have a group of us over for various holidays, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson is currently in her third year at Thompson Rivers University, where she is doing a bachelor\u2019s in criminology. \u201cI\u2019m most interested in victimology,\u201d she said. \u201cI think Canada and most of the world fail victims of crime to an astronomical degree. It\u2019s wild to think about how much attention we give criminals without considering how we could better support the survivor or victims of their crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artistically, she is planning a piece that more specifically honours her brother Noah. \u201cI want to educate the general public about how the consequences of generational or cyclical trauma can lead to mental health struggles like substance abuse,\u201d she said. \u201cI would like to highlight that it\u2019s not specifically someone\u2019s \u2018fault\u2019 for struggling the way they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more on Johnson, visit lindseytynejohnson.com<\/a>. Kamloops Art Gallery\u2019s website is kag.bc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lindsey Tyne Johnson (photo from Lindsey Tyne Johnson) Returning from a Birthright trip to Israel in 2019, artist Lindsey Tyne Johnson was inspired. Learning the aleph-bet, she made a laser-engraved spirit board in Hebrew, but accidentally arranged the letters left to right, as they would be in English, and not right to left, as Hebrew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[4253,3429,2726,4242,7906,22126,22125,9011,21303,6819],"class_list":["post-40725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-digital-art","tag-family","tag-hebrew","tag-history","tag-intergenerational-trauma","tag-kamloops-art-gallery","tag-lindsey-tyne-johnson","tag-social-commentary","tag-stigma","tag-substance-abuse"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}