The lecture entitled “Ghosts: An Artistic Meditation on the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism” will be held on Wednesday, February 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business Dining Room. 

In his lecture, Robert Hirsch will examine the artistic, cultural, political, and personal principals that informed his art exhibit, Ghosts: French Holocaust Children. He will discuss how he created the installation, the history that informs the project, and Israel’s place on the world stage. Additionally, Hirsch will review the interconnection between photography and history.

Ghosts: French Holocaust Children is a three-dimensional installation of sculptural and photographic work, currently displayed in the Walsh Gallery at the Quick Center for the Arts. The project was created based on documents and photographs collected by author, lawyer, and Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld, which have been reinterpreted and presented in the form of three 1/5-scale boxcars containing over 600 expressionistic portraits of deported French Jewish children, plus a series of mural-sized individual portraits -- all of which acts as an ethereal commemoration to these children’s abbreviated lives. 

Ghosts’ post-documentary approach transforms archival material by blending outer and inner realities to construct a historic media narrative that examines the extreme boundaries of human behavior regarding anti-Semitism, identity, loss, memory, and racism, conveying a haunting sense of lost human possibilities.

“It makes a case that contemplative picture-making can imagine the unimaginable,” stated Hirsch. “This encourages viewers to foster different ways of understanding the Holocaust (genocide) that cannot be achieved through traditional documentary photography, encouraging both critical thinking and empathy.”

Hirsch is the author of several books including Transformational Imagemaking: Handmade Photography Since 1960; Seizing the Light: A Social and Aesthetic History of Photography; Light and Lens: Photography in the Digital Age; Photographic Possibilities: The Expressive Use of Concepts, Equipment, Materials, and Processes; and Exploring Color Photography: From Film to Pixels. Hirsch’s work has been exhibited in over 200 solo and group shows.

Free and open to the public, this lecture is made possible by the Samuel and Bettie Roberts Memorial Endowment Fun. All are welcome to join Robert Hirsch on February 6, from 3-4:30 p.m., to preview the exhibit in the Walsh Gallery before the lecture. Contact the Bennett Center at bennettcenter@fairfield.edu or call (203) 254-4000, ext. 2066 for reservations.