Thursday, January 29
Time: 5:30pm - 7:00 pm
Location: Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
Cost: $25.00
Students: $5.00 (Current student ID will be required for entry.)
Museams for all: $5.00 (EBT/SNAP card required for entry)
In the beginning was creation: ever since, Jews have delved into traditional texts to create new stories. This process, known as midrash, can be expressed in many forms, including works of visual art such as those featured in Flowing through Time and Tradition. Join Jewish Studio Project Creative Director and author Rabbi Adina Allen and multimedia artist Naomie Kremer for a dynamic evening of visual midrash.
Tickets at the door will be sold to capacity by cash or check only.
If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at dalter@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 643-2526 with as much advance notice as possible.
The program includes:
Rabbi Adina Allen and Naomie Kremer in conversation
Chaos and Creation, a participatory art workshop led by Rabbi Allen
Signing of Rabbi Allen’s book The Place of All Possibility: Cultivating Creativity Through Ancient Jewish Wisdom, a paradigm-shifting work that reframes the whole of Torah as a contemporary guidebook for creativity
Please join us before the Visual Midrash for a special screening of Naomie Kremer and David Grubin’s film, In the Beginning Was Desire, a mythopoetic journey through the story of Adam and Eve featuring renowned Biblical scholar Aviva Zornberg. The 40-minute film will start at 11:30am, 12:30 pm, 1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm, and 4:30 pm. Learn more.
Watch In the Beginning Was Desire.
Program is subject to change.
Rabbi Allen’s book will be available for sale during the program courtesy of Afikomen Books.
About the speakers:
Rabbi Adina Allen is a national media contributor, popular speaker, and award-winning educator who teaches about creativity as a vital tool for Jewish learning, spiritual connection and social change. As co-founder and Creative Director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), Adina has worked with thousands of Jewish organizational and communal leaders, educators, and clergy across the country to access and activate their inherent creativity. Adina is the author of The Place of All Possibility: Cultivating Creativity Through Ancient Jewish Wisdom (Ayin, 2024). She and her family live in Berkeley, California.
Naomie Kremer is a painter, video artist, and stage designer. She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad. Her work is in many private and public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the US Embassy, Beijing, China. Kremer’s imagery, though largely abstract, is based in the real world. Incorporating nature, architecture, language, letterforms, and the human figure, her work draws from a wide range of sources and inspirations, including art history, music, poetry and literature. Her video based set design led her to begin combining painting and video. Kremer’s video based set designs include the San Francisco production of Tristan and Isolde, by Richard Wagner; Lucia Berlin Stories, performed in San Francisco and Paris by Word for Word Theater Company; Alcina, by George F Handel, performed in Acre, Israel, by the French Baroque orchestra Les Talens Lyriques; the world premiere production of The Secret Garden co-commissioned by San Francisco Opera and Cal performances; Light Moves, a collaboration with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company; and Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók, commissioned by the Berkeley Opera. In the Beginning Was Desire, for which she conceived and created the animation, is her first film project. In 2024 she worked with Shadowlight Productions to create a short film based on Marc Chagall’s autobiography. The film won an award for Best Experimental US short at the Austin International Art Festival. Kremer has taught Painting and Drawing at California College of the Arts, SF; The San Francisco Art Institute; California State University, Hayward; and the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art, Brittany, France. She has been a visiting artist and guest lecturer at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Painting, Oxford University; the Syracuse University Painting Program, Florence, Italy; Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota; and Mills College, Oakland. Learn more at www.naomiekremer.com
About the exhibition
Exploring the theme of water through the holdings of the Magnes Collection, Flowing through Time and Tradition traces how water flows through and shapes Jewish lives: enacting belief, sustaining life and communities, providing the means for spiritual cleansing, and mapping identities.