MOSAICA, a Web site dedicated to the exploration of contemporary Jewish art and culture through digital media, will be launched at York University on June 8 at 6pm in room 1009 in the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Building. Once launched, MOSAICA can be accessed here.
The MOSAICA project was initiated by Shelley Hornstein, professor of art and architectural history and theory in the Department of Visual Arts in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Reesa Greenberg, professor of visual arts at both Concordia and York universities, and art historian Carol Zemel, Chair of York’s Visual Arts Department.
The Web site will function as an online exhibition space for researchers and artists, as well as to promote exchange and collaboration on a global scale. Hornstein said one section of the Web site is “ACUME, the Cultural Memory project in Europe, which is a research collective of dozens of European universities and scholars. It will be linking MOSAICA to their Web site in the near future.”
This innovative Web project is in its infancy, and will always be a work in progress. Hornstein explained, “One of our near future goals is to add more projects that visualize historical or textual material, including my work titled The Man who Swam into History, which is an interactive tale of Chaim Baer’s diasporic journey, as well as Greenberg’s and Kati Geber’s Diaspora Doubled which is a moving history of a downtown Ottawa synagogue that became the city’s Jewish funeral parlour and is now a Seventh Day Adventist Church.”
York University hosts the MOSAICA site. “Ron Owston has been highly supportive and has welcomed us into the Institute for Technology Enhanced Learning,” said Hornstein. “We hope to continue to increase our collaborative team and include colleagues from all areas at York as well as at other institutions internationally.”
MOSAICA is supported by York’s offices of the Vice-President Academic, Associate Vice-President International and Vice-President Research & Innovation. Hornstein and Greenberg anticipate the project will benefit the University in many ways, including national and international recognition as a supporter of innovative research in new media, fine arts and diasporic culture, and the development of a new course which will be linked to courses in Europe and possibly the United States.
For more information, contact Shelley Hornstein at shelleyh@yorku.ca or Reesa Greenberg at reerden@cs.com.