Meirav Ong
Meirav Ong comes from a lineage of Jewish women who have been pacified and silenced for generations. Her practice sanctifies listening to heal the inherited traumas of this repression.
Ong creates sanctuaries for listening with textiles, clay, fire, sound recordings and body-based performances. Listening, a seemingly counterintuitive response to being silenced, is a practice of empathy. It is an act of simultaneous giving and receiving. While most recently her practice has responded to matters within Modern Orthodox Judaism, her work can be read more broadly as an indictment of and resistance to systemic discrimination against non-male voices within patriarchal systems. By subverting the silence of oppression through curating experiences of intentional listening, Ong’s work transforms listening into an act of resistance.