Building the Archive
“There were once hundreds of wooden synagogues in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The German occupiers burned to the ground those still standing in 1939. They no longer exist. While we can never recover the original objects in the sense of the original material, we can, however, recover the knowledge of how to build them by actually building one.”
— Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Warsaw, 4 September 2014,
What would be in the archive?
Over more than a decade of hands-on exploration, Handshouse Studio produced extensive records of the historical material and process research, recovering the”the knowledge of how to build them by
actually building” Gwozdziec, how to paint the elaborate imagery and iconography that colorfully covered the walls and ceiling of the prayer hall. This living knowledge of historic paint process, period pigments, color research, analysis of mark-making, observation of the style of the original artists, are are some examples of the cultural heritage learned and practiced in the Gwozdziec reconstruction process that are so valuable to the continued work of recovering this lost history.
Handshouse Studio has also established an educational model for learning-by-doing. Handshouse collaborates with educational organizations and institutions providing students the opportunity to work with educators, artists, craftspeople, scholars, historians, architects, engineers, anthropologists, archeologists and builders in a wide range of subjects. Our intense workshops create a dynamic learning experience where everyone contributes to the process and everyone learns. Students, experts, teachers, specialists, all become learners. Through this immersive investigative process, Handshouse Studio participants accurately and collaboratively recreating lost historic objects, working together to both remake historic objects and reawaken understanding of whole worlds of lost cultural heritage.
The calls for access to our research, and continued interest in our unique hands-on educational approach is leading us to explore new ways to expand our capacity to share our process and resources.
What is the goal of the archive?
The goal of this digital platform is to create a forum to gather records of Gwozdziec and other 18th century wooden synagogues of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, not only to share Handshouse Studio research and process records, but to offer “place” to house this history in a format that is open, expandable, and widely accessible to teachers, students, scholars, and the general public.
What is the goal of gathering and sharing these resources?
The hope is that A Portal to Gwozdziec will help us connect our communities, garner more participation in the extensive process of understanding this history. If we can share what we have learned, what those before us have learned, and what others are actively researching today, perhaps we can spark future investigation and understanding of cultural heritage still yet to be illuminated.
What happens next?
Building this first phase of A Portal to Gwoździec has allowed us to establish the foundation for the sharing our resources. And it has revealed the scope of the work left in building the archive.
We now must begin the next phase of inviting in more collaborators and supporters to help us in the comprehensive effort of digitizing and organizing multimedia records, transcribing and logging and hundreds of hours of documentary footage taken throughout the MAKING/HISTORY Gwoździec Re!construction.
Collaborating with educators and filmmakers in creating curriculum modules, professional development opportunities for educators wanting to use these resources to lead hands-on workshops.
We have the ambitious idea of building an interactive 3-D….
We have reconstructed a part of Gwoździec Synagogue. It has opened a window into a lost world. The work has only just begun.