We're thrilled to announce Dwelling in a Time of Plagues, a holiday-related constellation of outdoor art installations opening in Tucson, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, and New York City this week with financial support and guidance from CANVAS, a Jewish arts and culture funding collaborative incubated at JFN.

If you're lucky enough to live in one of these four cities, we encourage you to check out your local socially distanced exhibition in person. If not, you can interact with videos and images from the installations at www.plaguedwelling.com.

A collaboration of CANVAS grantees Reboot, Asylum Arts, LABA, and the Council of American Jewish Museums, Dwelling has commissioned art projects designed to be viewed outdoors, by artists eager to respond to the pandemic’s realities and to grapple with other contemporary crises: institutional racism and ageism, forced isolation, global warming, and the crisis for migrants and refugees.

The first three commissions, by artists Mirta Kupferminc, Adam W. McKinney, and Tiffany Woolf, coincide with Sukkot and reinterpret the form of the sukkah for today’s unique moment. You can learn more about these talented artists and their work at www.plaguedwelling.com. Another series of works will be commissioned for Passover.

"Dwelling is an act of museums and artists responding together,” said Melissa Martens Yaverbaum, executive director of the Council of American Jewish Museums. "In a time when we need art to help illuminate and animate our collective experience, this project brings talents across Jewish culture together to present new, thoughtful, works in time for the holiday. Each piece is, at once, created to be seen outdoors, in harmony with the holiday of Sukkot, and responsive to contemporary challenges we must face. As we wander together into a year of many unknowns, these works help us find a new vocabulary and meanings for our times."

“The sukkah is intended to be a shelter for all to reflect, rejoice, share, and acknowledge the changing of seasons,” said Lou Cove, Founder of CANVAS. “Dwelling invites us all — curious, concerned, courageous — to gather under the metaphorical roof of this creative collaboration and share those essential experiences together. For the Jewish creative community, and for the American community as a whole, it is an invitation to connect around the issues that matter most and, in so doing, to become larger than the sum of our parts.”

Learn more about these artists, their works, and Dwelling in a Time of Plagues here.

CANVAS is dedicated to encouraging, supporting, and promoting a 21^st-century Jewish cultural renaissance. Learn how you can get involved here.