Echoes Of An Old Exchange—In Collaboration with Terri Jones* (2024)
Wearing the mask of Jewish pack peddler, Moritz in performance with Terri Jones, as Absalom, I investigate what possibilities might have emerged in the in-between state of ‘other’, before Jewish assimilation into whiteness. During her family’s Thanksgiving, Terri and I forced ourselves to inhabit the caricatures that we seek to subvert. My frustration at having to perform a role constructed through prejudice and internalized over generations by both victim and oppressor, motivated me to push the boundaries of the caricature, to create characters whose complexities are revealed through their interaction.
Through gesture and physical exchange, Absalom and Moritz sought to transgress the limits of their masks. There are moments in performing in which Absalom and Moritz surprised each other, misunderstood each other and every so often, connected. Through improvisation and gesture, dialogue and reflection, Absalom and Moritz/Terri and I, continued to realize how differently they/we understood each other’s gestures: reaching out, what Moritz understood as an act of care, Absalom understood as an imposition; Absalom’s generous offering of ham, was inedible and unwelcome to Moritz. Tangled up in the thread that Moritz sells Absalom from his peddler’s pack, Moritz and Absalom pass control back and forth like the food that neither wishes to eat.
*Statement on collaboration: Vera Weinfield and Terri Jones
Terri Jones and I began our collaboration, Echoes Of An Old Exchange, the final chapter within my thesis installation, Unraveling the Threads, in September of 2023. Our process has been collaborative from start to finish beginning with conversations in which we shared, analyzed, and investigated individual research, experience, family histories and myth. As our characters, narratives and settings began to form, we created our own masks for the performance and took turns staging, filming, and editing. We performed and filmed multiple days and our narrative took shape through planning, improvisation, and in our editing process. We receive equal credit as directors for this project.
I constructed the cabinet installation with input on all aesthetic choices and placement from Terri. Terri took the lead on organizing the staging of our performance, communicating with and providing context for her family members who were present throughout the performance. We each responded individually to the entire process–what we have learned through conversation, performance, research and reflection–in the form of paintings: Terri’s works, AiN’T i Terri? and AiN’T i Terri 2, and my work, Unraveling The Threads.
The title of the project itself is a collaboration. Terri came up with ‘Echoes of Exchange’ and I added ‘An Old’ to form, Echoes Of An Old Exchange.
Process has always been an important part of my artmaking: learning and discovery through the act of making. This collaborative process has challenged both of us to confront difficult subject matter, work through disagreements in vision and style and attempt to understand each other’s perspective. It has been an act of sharing, an act of empathy and an effort to create new forms of relating based in honesty and care that seek to surpass many of the same historical relationships between Jews and Blacks that we are investigating.