PORTLAND, ORE.- The Burned Piano Project: Creating Music Amidst the Noise of Hate began with one family’s experience of antisemitism and reminds us of the larger context of rising hate crimes today. In spring 2022 a mosque, a Black-owned restaurant, and two synagogues were vandalized in Portland. Following these incidents, a family’s home, which shared a Jewish organization’s mailing address, was destroyed by arson in the middle of the night.
The creation of this exhibition, focused on the family’s ruined Steinway piano, celebrates how community can promote healing, build empathy, and grow understanding. Almost every part of the burned piano was incorporated into the artworks on exhibit, including two works, Lifecycle and Pushing the Pedal, contributed by family members.
“The Burned Piano Project: Creating Music Amidst the Noise of Hate reminds us of the larger context of rising hate crimes in Portland and the United States today,” said Executive Director Rebekah Sobel. “This exhibition celebrates how community can promote healing, build empathy, and grow understanding. We will need to do more and do better to combat rising antisemitism, but more awareness and empathy is a beginning.”
From the remains of the family’s burned Steinway piano, textile and found-object sculptor Bonnie Meltzer created a tapestry with piano strings and also transformed the wooden key cover and additional piano strings into a sculpture. Composer and performance artist Jennifer Wright transformed the ruined Steinway into a fantastical new instrument and created a ritual space around the piano’s massive cast iron harp. In addition to audio recordings in the exhibition, Wright will perform concerts, free with admission, in the gallery on this one-of-a-kind instrument.
Jennifer Wright, M.M., B.M., is a pianist, composer, multi-faceted performer, educator, multidisciplinary artist, event producer, and culture-maker. She has been described as “a real force of nature” (FearNoMusic artistic director Kenji Bunch), “New music glam!” (Aligned Artistry), and “brassy, nutty, classy…mad, quite mad.” (Oregon ArtsWatch). She teaches at Reed College, Portland State University College of the Arts, and in her award-winning private piano studio in Portland, Oregon.
Bonnie Meltzer’s art-making, activism, community building and gardening are linked together like crochet; one thread looping with itself creating an interlocking life. Born in New Jersey, Meltzer moved to Seattle to get an M.F.A. at the University of Washington. There, she found her medium, her social commentary voice, and installation as a format. As a networker she crochets (crochet being a form of netmaking) and purposefully designs projects that invite people to participate and connect with each other. In 2020, Meltzer produced the interactive installation, Tikkun Olam - Mending the Social Fabric, which was exhibited at OJMCHE in 2022.
