Cover one side of the girl's face, then the other. What do you notice?
To Consider:
This piece represents a survivor of the Holocaust. When you look at one side of the girl's face, she appears clean, her eye is clear and wide open. The other side of her face shows a very different story- dark and dirty with a sad, swollen eye. Together they make up her full face. If you did not notice the two halves, you may have considered her to be a portrait of a friend, but Labkovski's work has a deeper meaning. Labkovski reminds us that people carry their past trauma forward, whether we see it or not.
Background:
For survivors of the Holocaust, the aftermath of the Holocaust was a difficult, complicated time. Physically and mentally the survivors had to cope with the trauma they experienced. Many had no home or family, no place to return.
To read more about survivors after liberation, look at the "Survivor" article in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
This piece represents a survivor of the Holocaust. When you look at one side of the girl's face, she appears clean, her eye is clear and wide open. The other side of her face shows a very different story- dark and dirty with a sad, swollen eye. Together they make up her full face. If you did not notice the two halves, you may have considered her to be a portrait of a friend, but Labkovski's work has a deeper meaning. Labkovski reminds us that people carry their past trauma forward, whether we see it or not.
Background:
For survivors of the Holocaust, the aftermath of the Holocaust was a difficult, complicated time. Physically and mentally the survivors had to cope with the trauma they experienced. Many had no home or family, no place to return.
To read more about survivors after liberation, look at the "Survivor" article in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
