Robert Hirsch
2007
Installation display for "World in a Jar: War and Trauma" by Robert Hirsch

Screen capture
Provided by the artist - Robert Hirsch
The Gallery at the Creative Center for Photography, Freestyle Photographic Supplies, 5124 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California 90027-9897 U.S.A. (January 24 - March 5, 2008)
 
The pictorial sculpture WORLD IN A JAR: WAR & TRAUMA curates and re-imagines key components from historical and original images to explore the workings of our collective societal memory involving loss, popular culture, religion, tragedy, and wickedness over the past four centuries.
 
Using the Shoah as its point of departure, World in a Jar is a free-form montage that rethinks the customary linear narrative format by presenting an archive of what Mr. Hirsch chose to remember, without attaching a fixed ending. Over 800 jars are on display, each one a building block for a new structure. It is a flexible configuration allowing this to be a perpetual work in progress, recreating itself each time it is installed. It permits each photograph to not only present its own split-second historical reference, but also informs the context of the images surrounding it. This open-ended viewing experience, not unlike memory itself, can convey an endless tale that exists outside of chronological time.
 
LL/26235