Kavana

Jewish thought suggests that the memory of an action is as primary as the action itself. This is to say that when my hand is wounded, I remember other hands. I trace ache back to other aches - when my mother grabbed my wrist too hard pulling me across the intersection, when my great-grandmother’s fingers went numb on the ship headed towards Cuba fleeing the Nazis, when Miriam’s palms enduringly poured water for the Hebrews throughout their desert journey - this is how the Jew is able to fathom an ache. Because no physical space is a constant for the Jewish diaspora, time and the rituals that steep into it are centered as a mode of carrying on. The bloodline of a folktale, a tradition, a song, pulses through interpretation and enactment. Treating photographs in Kavana as such, I explore notions of Jewish memory, narrative heirlooms, and interpretive image making; the works are positioning themselves in the past as memories, in the present as stories being told, and in the future as rituals to interpret and repeat. To encounter an image in this way is not only to ask what it feels like, but to ask: what does it remember like?

© Hannah Altman - Threshold
i

Threshold

© Hannah Altman - Pressed Into Flesh
i

Pressed Into Flesh

© Hannah Altman - Keeping Time
i

Keeping Time

© Hannah Altman - Tzitzit (Threads)
i

Tzitzit (Threads)

© Hannah Altman - Washing the Dead (Funeral for a Beetle)
i

Washing the Dead (Funeral for a Beetle)

© Hannah Altman - An Inherited Shadow
i

An Inherited Shadow

© Hannah Altman - Assemble (II)
i

Assemble (II)

© Hannah Altman - Dead Sea Haze
i

Dead Sea Haze

© Hannah Altman - Salt Wound
i

Salt Wound

© Hannah Altman - Lulav
i

Lulav

© Hannah Altman - By the Window
i

By the Window

© Hannah Altman - Saltwater
i

Saltwater

© Hannah Altman - Tallit
i

Tallit

© Hannah Altman - Woman of Valor
i

Woman of Valor

© Hannah Altman - Sunset in Jerusalem
i

Sunset in Jerusalem

© Hannah Altman - Sunrise in New Jersey
i

Sunrise in New Jersey

© Hannah Altman - Winter Solstice
i

Winter Solstice

Latest Projects

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Stay in the loop


We will send you weekly news on contemporary photography. You can change your mind at any time. We will treat your data with respect. For more information please visit our privacy policy. By ticking here, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with them. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.