Hannah Wilson
Life, Creativity, Action, and Construction: The Exile in Cyprus Album 1947-48
2017 | Full access
Between 1947-48, an album of linocut prints was hand crafted within the confines of a British Mandate Internment Camp in Cyprus, one of a number which were established as a temporary measure designed to prevent illegal immigration into Palestine after World War II. Vocational training and creative practices were encouraged by relief agencies, both in the European DP camps and in Cyprus. In 1947, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee worked in coordination with the educational organization Beit Rutenberg to establish a series of workshops in the camps in Cyprus, to which Jewish-Palestinian teachers who specialized in fine arts, sciences, and humanities were sent. Under the tutelage of the artist Naftali Bezem, twenty-five survivors who had struggled through the destruction of European Jewry only to find themselves imprisoned once more, took part in the making of the album, entitled Exile in Cyprus. This thesis covers several areas of focus: the style and content of the prints themselves, the political and ideological context of the workshops and the impact of the experience on the emotional recovery and subsequent lifestyle of some of those involved. Issues relating to the involvement of institutions are also raised, in this case the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem. An analysis of the album, which was intended to be read as a collective body of work, reveals many themes and subject matters reflecting the nature of camp life, including the heat, the lack of sanitary conditions, and gender imagery. The discussion also considers the extent to which the content of the album overlaps with concentration camp iconography, and the potential relationship between their status as refugees and as survivors of the Holocaust. Little is known in terms of the impact that the creative process had on the lives and rehabilitation of the students of the workshop and their long-term futures, including whether they continued to produce art after arriving at their ultimate destination, Palestine. In the context of rebuilding the new Jewish state, art was not highly prioritized or encouraged as a profession. Exile in Cyprus was mostly forgotten and hidden away in archives or personal collections.
Supervisors:
Dr. Rachel Perry
Dr. Eva Frojmovic