Select Projects/Exhibits
For additional community based projects see www.creativeways.org
Exhibiting Artist, Bioneers 2025 Conference, Berkeley, CA
Art Installation: "My Writing Table Wants to be a Tree Again...."
https://bioneers.org/
“My writing table wants to be a tree again between old trees;
I hear the rustle of an ancient hidden forest in its woodenness.”
From a poem by Chaim Grade, c. 1950
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.
I hear the rustle of an ancient hidden forest in its woodenness.”
From a poem by Chaim Grade, c. 1950
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
515 Special Collections: Group Exhibition
Bendix Building, Los Angeles, August 2025, Curated by Danny Shain
Artists were invited to choose a favorite book and create an original book cover. Benny's choice: Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.
Bendix Building, Los Angeles, August 2025, Curated by Danny Shain
Artists were invited to choose a favorite book and create an original book cover. Benny's choice: Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.
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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 between Benny Ferdman, Shari Davis, and Michael Alpert. In this intergenerational, interdisciplinary and collaborative project, the wild spaces within us met the wild spaces around us. Art installations and music invited surprise and wonder along a hidden trail at KlezKanada’s Summer Retreat. Carrying the languages, symbols and textures of our cultures, together we stepped into the wild, where nature and culture reconnect. Rooted in diverse Motherlands, we found common ground on this shared "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.
Montreal, August 2022
A collaboration between Benny Ferdman, Shari Davis, and Michael Alpert. In this intergenerational, interdisciplinary and collaborative project, the wild spaces within us met the wild spaces around us. Art installations and music invited surprise and wonder along a hidden trail at KlezKanada’s Summer Retreat. Carrying the languages, symbols and textures of our cultures, together we stepped into the wild, where nature and culture reconnect. Rooted in diverse Motherlands, we found common ground on this shared "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, Benny led participants in making art exploring stories where Yiddish language and culture 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.
In Yiddish Goes into the Wild, Benny led participants in making art exploring stories where Yiddish language and culture 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 at the Ashkenaz Festival
12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival, North America’s largest celebration of global Jewish music and culture
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, August 2018
Site-wide, interactive visual arts experience, transforming the Harbourfront Centre into a wondrous landscape of giant mermaids, mystical unicorns, spinning rabbits and an elephant with a castle on its back. Inspired by Ferdman’s decades-long exploration of the rich visual culture that was once central to Eastern European Jewish communities, this project built upon the artist’s visual library of surprising and fantastical creatures brought to life from medieval Jewish manuscripts, rare photos of lost, painted wooden synagogues and other ritual objects. In collaboration with Evelyn Tauben and Shari Davis.
WondeRing included:
12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival, North America’s largest celebration of global Jewish music and culture
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, August 2018
Site-wide, interactive visual arts experience, transforming the Harbourfront Centre into a wondrous landscape of giant mermaids, mystical unicorns, spinning rabbits and an elephant with a castle on its back. Inspired by Ferdman’s decades-long exploration of the rich visual culture that was once central to Eastern European Jewish communities, this project built upon the artist’s visual library of surprising and fantastical creatures brought to life from medieval Jewish manuscripts, rare photos of lost, painted wooden synagogues and other ritual objects. In collaboration with Evelyn Tauben and Shari Davis.
WondeRing included:
- Giant sculptural puppets of fantastical creatures created for the parade by Benny Ferdman, Jacob Ferdman, Isis Walls, and a team of volunteers.
- Art workshops for all ages - metal amulets, spinning whirligigs, and painted flags celebrating the diverse languages of Toronto
- The Room in the Elephant - solo exhibition & gallery talk by Benny Ferdman in the Marilyn Brewer Gallery. 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 with students, created artwork for 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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