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Manfred. Detail from prayer for the dead and the living, 2021. Installation of circa 300 burnt photographs, stones, hair, wire, thread. © Sara Davidmann
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Looking for Leo I, 2018. Chemigram made using a digital negative. Printed with the artist’s blood, darkroom chemicals and bleach, 40.5 x 30.5cm. © Sara Davidmann
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Mischling VIII, 2019. 12 lightboxes made from microscope photographs of the blood of living Schneeweiss Davidmann family members © Sara Davidmann
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My name is Sara, 2018. Six photograms made using the artist’s hair (a plait kept from her childhood), 40.5 x 30.5cm. © Sara Davidmann
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Wearing my father’s clothing, 2018. Re-appropriated family photograph of the artist taken in 1957, 12.2 x 8.5cm. © Sara Davidmann
Exhibition
My name is Sara
27 Aug 2021 – 18 Sep 2021
Regular hours
- Monday
- Closed
- Tuesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 20:00
- Friday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- Closed
Address
- 121 Roman Road
- London
- E2 0QN
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Buses: D6, 8,
- Tube: Bethnal Green
- Train: Bethnal Green
My name is Sara is a new exhibition by Sara Davidmann drawing upon themes of family, post-memory and the Holocaust.
About
"My name is Sara draws upon themes of family, post-memory and the Holocaust.
Davidmann discovered a family album of photographs and handwritten notes in German (never before translated), that tell a story her father was never able to tell - of the German Jewish side of her family.
Davidmann’s father, Manfred, and his sister Susi survived the Holocaust by
escaping from Berlin on the Kindertransport, arriving in Britain in 1939.
The photo-album belonged to Davidmann’s aunt Susi. Early photographs show a family life of seaside holidays, weddings and Berlin outings – a family Davidmann had not known existed.
Realising that many of these people did not reappear in photographs taken after World War II she searched for traces of their lives. She uncovered over 130 pages of Nazi and official documents. These revealed that family members were deported to, and murdered, in concentration camps at Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. Others survived by escaping to Shanghai and France, and by living hidden in Berlin with false documents.
At the same time – parallel to making these discoveries, Davidmann used photography and video to make artworks using the material she was uncovering. Recognisable objects – hair, family photographs and Nazi documents appear in the artworks – only to be disrupted by elements of fire and erasure. This is the first exhibition of this work."
An artist’s book, Mischling 1, published by GOST, accompanies the exhibition. Signed copies of Mischling 1 will be on sale during the exhibition.
