The One who Dwells in This House

The One who Dwells in This House emerges from the text of the Mishna (Middot 2:2), which details the highly prescribed choreography for bringing offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem. This passage reads like a manual for a collective grief ritual that moves beyond the shiva house (house of mourning) to include the grief of having harmed a loved one, of marginalization or isolation, or loss of a friendship, or losing one's way. The text reads: All who entered the Temple Mount entered by the right and went round .... save for one to whom something had happened... "Why do you go round to the left?" "Because I am a mourner," "May He who dwells in this house comfort you." The One Who Dwells in This House is a visual commentary on what it means to grieve, to be marginalized, vulnerable, and to return, whether to a familiar landscape or a different one altogether. Following the massacre of October 7, the Portland Jewish community suffered fissures, as did so many other Diaspora communities. 'Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture' has served as an incubator for artists, conversations, the creation of work and public encounters that radically counter these divides.