A new, EU-funded Jewish heritage project, Parallel Traces: A New Lens on Jewish Heritage, aims to encourage awareness of urban Jewish heritage through digital art — photographs, audio and visual presentations, and the like.
The project, its web site states, “aims to rediscover traces of Jewish cultural heritage in urban architecture as an integral part of European history and to raise awareness and respect amongst different cultures through different mechanisms.”
Spearheaded by the AEPJ (European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage), Parallel Traces focuses initially on Jewish heritage in five cities where partner organizations in the project are located: Girona, Spain; Wroclaw, Poland; Sighet, Romania; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Belgrade, Serbia.
The project is co-funded by the European Union within the framework of the Creative Europe program.
One of the key elements will be a competition for original digital artwork representing Jewish heritage in the urban context. (We will share the call for submissions once it has been announced.)
Rosa Juanco, the artistic director of the project, says in an online interview:
We expect the project to produce high quality photographic art both by the guest artists and by the participants in the competition, which can be a great opportunity for less well-known artists to make their work known by a broader public. Finding new and different perspectives of looking at the traces of Jewish heritage in the urban environment of our European cities today will make them more visible and will help European citizens to realise to what extent the Jewish culture is also an exciting and beautiful part of their own culture and their everyday life.
Access the Parallel Traces web site