Select Projects/Exhibits
For additional community based projects see www.creativeways.org
Exhibiting Artist, Bioneers 2025 Conference, Berkeley, CA
“My writing table wants to be a tree again between old trees; I hear the rustle of an ancient hidden forest in its woodenness.”
What do we know of the journey of ephemeral and enduring materials that end up in our domestic spaces---the things we find and pick up along the trail? What erodes and what remains? What and how do things transform with time?
In the wild places of Topanga, where I explore and gather, here the ancient and living share the landscape–coyote and rabbit, predator and prey, all are present amongst the wisdom of the stones.
This artwork explores and amplifies the creation stories and hidden histories of objects, both ordinary and wondrous, which I collect, transform and live with: a wooden chair reclaimed by the forest it once came from, twelve-million-year-old fossils found in the local hills, and their giant replicas shaped from clay I harvest. Casts of ancient “mortero holes” hollowed into the rocky ledges where indigenous Tongva people ground acorns generations ago.
What do we know of the journey of ephemeral and enduring materials that end up in our domestic spaces---the things we find and pick up along the trail? What erodes and what remains? What and how do things transform with time?
In the wild places of Topanga, where I explore and gather, here the ancient and living share the landscape–coyote and rabbit, predator and prey, all are present amongst the wisdom of the stones.
This artwork explores and amplifies the creation stories and hidden histories of objects, both ordinary and wondrous, which I collect, transform and live with: a wooden chair reclaimed by the forest it once came from, twelve-million-year-old fossils found in the local hills, and their giant replicas shaped from clay I harvest. Casts of ancient “mortero holes” hollowed into the rocky ledges where indigenous Tongva people ground acorns generations ago.
Select photos by Jess Lynn Goss
Solo Art Exhibition, Seattle Yiddish Fest 2023
From the Exhibit Text:
“I once saw a wolf floating down the river on a haystack.” Those were the words of my father while recalling memories of his life before the war in his hometown of Lutsk, Poland (now part of Ukraine). The contrast between a haystack, which feeds domestic creatures, and a wild creature, both afloat and rushing down a perilous river– seemed to me to presage what would become of my father’s world – a world swept away just a few years later. That one sentence memory gave birth to several works of art over the years. And now that image seems to have new resonance in light of the calamitous events in the world today. In this exhibition, I’m setting us all afloat on that river – a journey down a river of time, collecting and uncovering a carousel of symbols, images and “wild words” that once circled through the lived–life of these ancestral places."
“I once saw a wolf floating down the river on a haystack.” Those were the words of my father while recalling memories of his life before the war in his hometown of Lutsk, Poland (now part of Ukraine). The contrast between a haystack, which feeds domestic creatures, and a wild creature, both afloat and rushing down a perilous river– seemed to me to presage what would become of my father’s world – a world swept away just a few years later. That one sentence memory gave birth to several works of art over the years. And now that image seems to have new resonance in light of the calamitous events in the world today. In this exhibition, I’m setting us all afloat on that river – a journey down a river of time, collecting and uncovering a carousel of symbols, images and “wild words” that once circled through the lived–life of these ancestral places."
OTHERLAND, KlezKanada Summer Retreat, Montreal, August 2022
A Collaboration with Benny Ferdman, Michael Alpert and Shari Davis
An interdisciplinary, multigenerational project where the wild spaces within us met the wild spaces around us. Participants explored the poetry and music of our our multiple identities and connection to the natural world. Having arrived at this place and this moment after migrations from diverse Motherlands, we shared common ground on this Otherland.
A Library of Trees, A Landscape of Words: An Arts Workshop to Co-Create the Visual World of Otherland
Benny Ferdman worked with KlezKanada participants to co-create the visual art elements of the Otherland project: Inspired by Yiddish poetry and text as well as personal stories, participants used both traditional art materials, and found objects to create collaborative works of art culminating in site-specific, interactive installations along the trail.
A Collaboration with Benny Ferdman, Michael Alpert and Shari Davis
An interdisciplinary, multigenerational project where the wild spaces within us met the wild spaces around us. Participants explored the poetry and music of our our multiple identities and connection to the natural world. Having arrived at this place and this moment after migrations from diverse Motherlands, we shared common ground on this Otherland.
A Library of Trees, A Landscape of Words: An Arts Workshop to Co-Create the Visual World of Otherland
Benny Ferdman worked with KlezKanada participants to co-create the visual art elements of the Otherland project: Inspired by Yiddish poetry and text as well as personal stories, participants used both traditional art materials, and found objects to create collaborative works of art culminating in site-specific, interactive installations along the trail.
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KlezKanada Summer Retreat 2019: In Yiddish Goes into the Wild, participants made art exploring stories where Yiddish encountered old and new living landscapes –from the dense Polish pine forests, to the vast and wild lands of the American southwest, to the Laurentian Mountains where we gathered. Through poetry, personal narrative and art making, we explored the untold stories of life in the old world, new world, and other far-flung lands. Participants created block prints and watercolors, culminating in a collaborative installation. In addition, Benny presented The Art of Encounter—or The Crow Looks Backward and Other Stories--a gallery talk about his work, and participated in Art Out of the Archives, a conversation facilitated by Evelyn Tauben exploring artistic projects that engage deeply with archival materials – bringing them to life or reinterpreting them in dynamic new ways.
WondeRing Project at the Ashkenaz Festival, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, August 2018
For the 12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival, North America’s largest celebration of global music and culture, Shari Davis & Benny Ferdman of Creative Ways, together with curator and producer Evelyn Tauben, designed a site-wide, interactive visual arts experience that transformed the Harbourfront Centre into a wondrous landscape of giant mermaids, mystical unicorns, spinning rabbits and family art workshops. Ferdman led a team of volunteers to create the giant elephant puppet that wildly led the parade and musicians along the harbor front.
WondeRing included:
- Giant sculptural puppets of fantastical creatures created for the parade by Benny Ferdman, Jacob Ferdman, Isis Walls, Yavni Bar Am and a team of incredible volunteers.
- Art workshops for all ages--the metal amulets, spinning whirligigs, and painted flags, celebrating the diverse languages of Toronto, animated the signature Ashkenaz Parade. More images at
- The Room in the Elephant-- exhibition and gallery talk by Benny Ferdman in the Marilyn Brewer Gallery at Harbourfront Centre; curated by Evelyn Tauben.
- An intensive, four day studio course-- at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) by Ferdman, introduced students to the rich world of Eastern European Jewish folk art traditions and gave students an opportunity to create artwork for the large puppets leading the Ashkenaz parade.
CD Cover Artwork `
In Der Heym/Down Home. Recorded by Michael Alpert and Craig Judelman borschtbeat.bandcamp.com/album/in-der-heym
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Cover art work and images in liner notes for CD Night Songs From a Neighboring Village, Michael Alpert & Julian Kytasty. Youtube video link to Nightsongs full CD, with artwork.
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ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: BENNY FERDMAN: COOK-UP A SOUP AND OTHER TALES
Exhibit at Laemmle Theatre Town Center, Los Angeles, 2018
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As a collector of materials and stories from human, natural and cultural landscapes, BENNY FERDMAN’s artwork juxtaposes and reinterprets these images and tales to reclaim wonder in everyday life. Cook-Up a Soup And Other Tales is a collection of Ferdman’s adventurous reclamation and reworking of iconography, folk motifs and works drawn from diverse narratives and East European Jewish culture, that once expressed itself in Yiddish, Benny's first language.
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