Ensuring lessons of Holocaust are remembered for future generations

A new free art exhibition in Leeds aims to explore the role contemporary art can play in remembering and understanding the Holocaust.

- by Jennifer Cartwright

Memorial Gestures by the Holocaust Centre North is an exhibition of work by 14 contemporary artists in response to extensive archive collections, survivor testimonies and objects bequeathed to Holocaust Centre North by survivors and their families.

The exhibition, which is Holocaust Centre North's first external show, will run from now until Saturday June 28 at the 1912 Mill at Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley.

A total of 20 works are on display and they vary in medium including works in textile, video, drawing, etching, print and ceramics.

The exhibition's curator, Paula Kolar, questions about representation and responsibility, such as who will tell survivors stories when they are no longer here to speak them, how we nurture a culture of care regarding how these stories are told, and how we attend to what is unarchivable are at "at the heart of" the exhibition.

Paula said: "You can ask questions you may not have an answer to without feeling the need to answer them.

"Even the questioning is really important".

Memorial Gestures is the culmination of a one-of-a kind creative initiative launched by Holocaust Centre North in 2022.

Through a residency period, the artists involved have had the opportunity to research and reflect on Holocaust commemoration.