browseCan I Say Shalom?
Miriam Reik (Photographer)
From the original Side Gallery exhibition text, 1994:
This is a story about a community. At the same time, it is also a personal retrospection into a world that both attracts and repels. A matriarchal world… my upbringing was happy, sheltered and womb-like. Not just within the family home, but beyond the front door and into the embrace of the larger family - The Jewish Community... As I grew up, I found that membership seemed to exclude my participation in other, outside worlds. The structure became too claustrophobic.
Twenty years on, and these photographs provide a catharsis to my long-standing ambivalences. Here I allow myself to express these dualities - the love and the hate. After the event, my feelings have not changed dramatically, but they have been refined. What I did find out, was, that the door never closed behind me… North West London has the greatest concentration of Jewish people in Britain, and this collection of photographs scans a broad landscape of Jewish influences from childhood through to old age, so emphasising the structure of life within the community, and by examining interests outside of the home, I am also attempting to stress the significance of group activity. I have looked at areas of inordinate importance in more detail, ie the bar mitzvah and the wedding.
The understanding is that, although the events depicted in some of these photographs may appear quite commonplace, the people in them are exclusively Jewish. The real celebration is in the collective. They belong. If you want to meet the group, the password is CAN I SAY SHALOM? Miriam Reik
Note: Miriam Reik took part in the 1993 photographic workshops organised by Side Gallery at Crook in County Durham, part of the international Unclear Family project. She brought this exhibition to the gallery the following year.