Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Honors for Aliza Augustine and Beth Burstein

I first became familiar with the work of photographer Aliza Augustine while interviewing filmmaker and poet Janet R. Kirchheimer* about her and Augustine's collaboration on a Holocaust-related multimedia exhibition titled "How to Spot One of Us".

Recently, I learned that Augustine won the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers (7th Edition) in the Documentary and Editorial Category**; photographer Beth Burstein was a runner-up in the same category. Burstein also won in the Self Portrait Category***, and was a finalist in the Portrait Category****. (All Winners, Runners Up, and Finalists in all categories are found here.)

Both Augustine's and Burstein's work will be showcased in a special exhibition, "Memory of the Holocaust and the Second Generation", at the Berlin Foto Biennale 2016, 4th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography, which opens October 6 at the Palazzo Italia. Work by three other photographers — Vianne Rea, Quyen Pfeifer, and Sebastian Holzknecht — also will be in that special show. Altogether, nearly 450 contemporary photographers from 42 countries will be represented at the Biennale, which will continue through October 30.

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An Israeli-American and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Augustine has been exploring aftermath and survival in her ongoing project Documenting the Second Generation: Children of Holocaust Survivors.  Combining fine art portraits of survivors' children, who were found via social media, with their Holocaust-era family photos, Augustine's images capture profoundly how the Holocaust shaped not only the lives of survivors but also the lives of family members, including children. The images are as poignant as they are thought-provoking.



Aliza Augustine, Emily Cohen
From the Series Documenting the Second Generation
© Aliza Augustine

Augustine trained as a painter at Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited in museums and galleries and at colleges and universities in the New York City area and throughout the United States.


Aliza Augustine Website

"Documenting the Second Generation": Artist StatementParticipationInstallation Photos

Aliza Augustine Photography on FaceBook

Read Rukh Schaechter's 2015 article in Forward, "How Family Holocaust Stories Became Multimedia Art Exhibit", to learn more about Kirchheimer's and Augustine's collaborative exhibition.

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American Beth Burstein has created a haunting photo essay, The Legacy: A Daughter's Experience of the Holocaust, which documents her father's World War II experiences in a Jewish ghetto in Kaunas, Lithuania, and in a concentration camp near Dachau, as well as her own experience as a child of a Holocaust survivor. Shown in three solo exhibitions in the U.S., Burstein's project is in two parts: "Part 1, The Family Heirloom", and "Part 2, I Thought It Would Feel Like Home".  Two of Burstein's photographs from the photo essay will be included in the Berlin exhibition.



Beth Burstein, The Family Portrait: My Grandmother Rachel, 40, 
and Aunt Ida, 11, After Auschwitz
From the Series The Family Heirloom
© Beth Burstein

Burstein has a bachelor's degree in photography from Hampshire College in Massachusetts. 


Beth Burstein Website

The Family Heirloom at Beth Burstein Website

I Thought It Would Feel Like Home at Beth Burstein Website

Beth Burstein Photography on FaceBook

The Legacy: A Daughter's Experience of the Holocaust on FaceBook

The Legacy has been published as a book in hardcover and softcover. It also is available as an e-book.

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*  See my interview with Janet R. Kirchheimer: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.


** Gallery of Images for Documentary and Editorial Category: Augustine's photos: first row, second from left; second row, fifth from left; third row, first and second from left. Burstein's photo is in the first row, third from left.

*** Gallery of Images for Self Portrait Category: Burstein's photo, My Father's Uniform (from the series The Family Heirloom) is the first in the first row, beginning on the left.

**** Gallery of Images for Portrait Category: Burstein's photo, The Family Portrait: My Grandmother Rachel, 40, and Aunt Ida, 11, After Auschwitz (from the series The Family Heirloom) is the first photo in the fourth row, beginning on the left.


Berlin Foto Biennale on FaceBook

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