DYCP Support Video - Stephanie Osztreicher
1. 'Makh tsi di eygelekh’ (Close Your Eyes) is a Yiddish lullaby by Isaiah Shpigl, a writer-poet-essayist-teacher who survived the Łódź ghetto and Auschwitz. Although a lullaby, it contrasts vivid and provocative wartime lyrics with a sweet melody:
Close your little eyes,
Little birds are coming,
Circling around
The head of your cradle.
Baggage in hand
Our home in ashes
We are setting out, my child
In search of luck...
The Holocaust holds a visceral place in my history. I am both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish with a family in Hungry who went to Auschwitz during WWII. Although I am somewhat distanced from the the horrors of that time, but the displacement and the ghostly impulse to keep moving, and never settle echo in my blood today.
I grew up in Australia and now live in London, Chris Bennett and I decided to use an Australian landscape to frame an emotive movement piece that evokes a desire to move forward while feeling a connection to the land we move through. The feeling of displacement is all too real for many. The work is intended to be a meditative moment of peace and loss.
2. Within the creative work ‘Cordolium’, we question the concept of 'finding love',
'searching for love' and ‘romantic relationships’ – asking: is that the ‘the ultimate purpose of
life’? Is that the most important merit in our lives? And why are we so afraid to be alone?
Are there any other forms of love that can fulfil us?
Two women, alone in the mines.
It’s quiet, all they hear is the sound of their own breath and stillness. They don’t see each
other; they don’t see anyone as they search. They are searching for life in the mines, in the
architecture, in the cracks in the stone, on the cold floor, in the ants crawling by light beams
escaping into the dark and through the slightest breeze across their bodies. The presence of
life gives them hope because with life comes love. This is what they crave, so, they mine for
it. They will go deeper into the mines if they must.
How far can their own love travel?
The echo of their beating heart through their veins is ready to be heard.
How do we search for love, what material can be used to mend a broken heart?
Even the hardness of a rock, when cracked but met with light and water can grow moss to
cover its scars.
3. Drawing Movement: online collaboration with visual artists.
