Exhibit portrays perseverance of Russian Mennonite women
Art exhibit: Women in the Mennonite Exodus From Ukraine: Paintings by Ray Dirks
Reception date and time: Sunday, Aug. 30, 3-5 p.m. (exhibit open Aug. 10 through Oct. 16, 2015)
Documentary showing: “And When They Shall Ask,” Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, at College Mennonite Church, 6:30 p.m.
Location: Goshen College’s Harold and Wilma Good Library Gallery
Cost: Free and open to the public
Sponsor: The Mennonite-Amish Museum Committee of Goshen College. Anna Wiebe, curator.
Paintings by artist Ray Dirks that honor the suffering, courage, faith and love of Russian Mennonite women whose lives were disrupted by conflicts in Russia will be on display in the Harold and Wilma Good Library basement gallery at Goshen College Aug. 10 through Oct. 16, 2015. A reception will take place on Sunday, Aug. 30, 3-5 p.m., in the Good Library Gallery, and a film titled “And When They Shall Ask” will be shown Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, at College Mennonite Church. All events are free and open to the public.
Each of Dirks’ paintings depict an individual Mennonite woman whose life was disrupted by the Russian Revolution of 1917, civil war, collectivization, famine and the displacement of World War II. These women sought peace and freedom in Canada, usually with their children, to create new lives for themselves and their families. Many of their husbands disappeared during the Stalin purges of the 1930s.
“A spirit of graciousness and a lack of a desire for revenge, even forgiveness, flows through the stories of many of the featured women,” Dirks said. “Survival was difficult, most existed in a form of hell on earth for long periods, many lost family members – murdered, tortured, starved, thrown into the Soviet Gulag – never to return. Even so, many left this earth having reputations that reflected humility, decency, love, grace and faith.”
Dirks’ paintings were commissioned by family groups, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Friends of the Mennonite Centre in Ukraine (FOMCU) or Mennonite Benevolent Society. Dirks, who has given much of his attention in recent years to the art of people of African and Asian backgrounds, has long wanted to reflect stories out of his own stream of Mennonite history, fearing they are being lost.
Dirks met with family members of each woman to collect photos, diary entries, notes, documents and stories. He asked for songs, poems and Bible verses which were important to the women, and incorporated all of this into the painting. Each woman’s story is included on the right side of the image.
Ray Dirks, who has worked as an artist and curator in 30 countries, founded the Mennonite Heritage Center (MHC) Gallery as a full time exhibition venue and became its first curator/ director in 1998. He grew up near Vancouver, British Columbia.
Dirks’ curated exhibitions have toured in Europe, Africa and North America. He has exhibited as a solo artist in Canada, the U.S., Cuba, Ethiopia, India and Trinidad and Tobago. In 2000 he was invited by the National Union of Writers and Artists in Cuba to have a solo exhibition in Havana. In 2002, Dirks was invited to be artist-in-residence at Overseas Ministries Study Center, adjacent to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a research fellow at Yale. In 2008 Dirks received the Above and Beyond for the Arts award from the Manitoba Foundation for the Arts. In 2011 he received Canadian Mennonite University’s Blazer Distinguished Community Service Award.
A showing of the film, “And When They Shall Ask,” about the Russian Mennonite experience from 1788 to the present, will take place Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, at 6:30 p.m. at College Mennonite Church. The film features re-enactments of historic events, interviews with witnesses to these events, archival film footage, and culminates with scenes of Mennonite life in the former Soviet Union. These diverse elements are bound together by the question “Can faith triumph in the face of great adversity?” The film runs 83 minutes.
The exhibit is on loan from the Mennonite Heritage Center Gallery in Winnipeg and is sponsored by the Mennonite-Amish Museum Committee of Goshen College. Anna Wiebe is the curator. The exhibit is open during library hours, which vary throughout the school year. See the Good Library website for current hours.
Next exhibit: “Inherited Quilts II,” Spring 2016