Or Hadash | עור חדש: Soil Regeneration
Artists Making Sustainable Parchment for Hebrew Scribes
Wednesday, January 2020
Join the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum (GCJM) and soil regeneration artists, Jacqueline Smith (sheep farmer), Jesse Meyer (parchment maker) and Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem (Hebrew scribe and founder of Or Hadash | עור חדש ) for a conversation about their collaboration in the production of high animal welfare parchment for Hebrew scribes. Artists will share about the unique role and perspective that each brings to this collaborative project.This conversation is hosted by the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum and will be facilitated by Greensboro residents, Hannah Henza, Jewish sustainability professional and Adam Carlin, artist, lecturer and co-curator of the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum. Q & A will follow this hour long presentation.
Watch the recording here:
Megillat Esther written on Or Hadash parchment by scribe, Julie Seltzer
Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem is an interdisciplinary artist, Torah scribe, curator and chutzpanit. She is the Founding Artist and Co-Director of the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum in Greensboro, NC and various other projects that dismantle normative power structures and redistribute agency to the public. Shoshana was one of the first women in modern times to train and practice as a Torah scribe. Today her work as a scribe manifests through her project, Or Hadash | עור חדש, an art intervention into the parchment making industry.
Jesse Meyer is the CEO of Pergamena, a family business established in Eisenberg, Germany in 1550 (yes! You read that correctly). Jesse, alongside his brother Stephen and a growing number of employees, oversees and participates in the production of both quality veg-tan leather and parchment for dozens of niche industries.
Jacqueline Smith, is the founder and CEO of Central Grazing Company, a regenerative food and fiber lamb company located in Kansas. Jacqueline has been a successful entrepreneur and an animal welfare advocate since 2000. Today, she operates Central Grazing Company and is a pioneer in restoring healthy soils, strengthening regional supply chains, and creating new regenerative food and fiber economies in the Midwest.
Adam Carlin is a social practice artist who lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is currently the Director of Greensboro Project Space, an off-campus contemporary art center at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro, and Director of Community Engagement for UNCG’s College of Visual and Performing Arts where he also lectures. In a new role, Adam is serving as the Co-Director of the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum.
Hannah Henza is the Director of National Programs at Hazon: the Jewish Lab for Sustainability where she manages programs and outreach across the organization and the Jewish world related to environmental Judaism and climate change. Hannah is a certified yoga-instructor, an avid outdoors-woman, and an enthusiastic resident of Greensboro, NC where she proudly shares her home – a self-built tiny house on wheels – with her 10 legged family.