ABOUT ARTLAB
Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture is a community of contemporary Jewish artists, culture bearers and the audiences we engage throughout Portland, OR and the environs. Our programs and projects connect Jewish artists with each other and the public with Jewish artists. We believe that artists are essential interpreters of the times, serving as portals to new and expansive ways of thinking about and experiencing Jewish life in this moment. Art/Lab’s vision manifests as a fellowship cohort for contemporary Jewish artists, an art gallery exclusively for Pacific Northwest Jewish artists, exhibitions, arts workshops and other public programs and dialogues.
History
Art/Lab began in 2021 as an artist fellowship within Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish, a project founded by Rabbi Josh Rose. Today, we are an independent organization shaping the future of Jewish arts and culture in Portland and beyond. Art/Lab is a vibrant, safe and inclusive hub where creatives and community converge—inviting each other to grow as cultural stewards of Jewish life through encounters with creative practices, Jewish text, theology, ritual and tradition at the intersection of contemporary life and thought. Our programs include our Fellowship cohort, The Genesis podcast, arts workshops, an exhibition and project space and a host of public events.
"You have created something wonderful…a safe and warm space for creation, learning and community. Thank you!”
Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem
Co-Founder & DIRECTOR
Shoshana is an American/Israeli interdisciplinary artist, Torah scribe, curator and chutzpanit. She is a graduate of Portland State University’s MFA in Art and Social Practice where she helped to establish the Social Practice Archive in the University Library. Shoshana additionally holds an MA in Jewish Studies from Hebrew College and an MEd in Creative Arts in Learning from Lesley College, both in the Boston, Massachusetts area.
Shoshana was one of the first women in modern times to train and practice as a Torah scribe. Her scribal work inspired her international collaboration, Women of the Book, launched with the Jerusalem Biennale 2015 and acquired by the Yale University Arts Library Collection. Today her work as a scribe manifests through her ongoing project, Or Hadash |עור חדש, an art intervention into the parchment making industry, turning the current practice away from industrial agriculture and re-turning it to the land, the people and the animals they tend. She is the Founding Artist and Co-Director of A Contemporary Jewish Museum and its participating Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum + Social Practice Institute for Southern Jewish Artists in Greensboro, NC. After 20 years in Israel, Shoshana now resides with her partner, their children and their rescue dog in the Dyer Street Shtetl, a NorthEast Portland, OR intentional Jewish community. There she co-directs and co-curates The Gug(g)enheim Portland in their family residence.
Shoshana’s work has been written about in Hyperallergic, Nashim, The Forward and other major publications. She was recently featured in a podcast with the Jewish Women’s Archive and has served as artist/scholar-in-residence for Limmud North America, the Pearlstone Institute for Living Judaism, Aleph Alliance for Jewish Renewal, The University of North Carolina, Greensboro and Chapel Hill and many other institutions and organizations. Shoshana teaches, lectures, consults and takes creative residence internationally.
Learn more: www.shoshanagugenheim.com
Rabbi Josh Rose
Co-Founder & Rabbinic Advisor
Rabbi Josh Rose brings an open mind and a broad range of interests in music, culture, theology and philosophy to his podcasting and teaching. He is the founder and host of Art/Lab’s The Genesis podcast. His natural curiosity about other people’s narratives, as well as his love of conversation and big ideas are what make this podcasting adventure a success for him. Rabbi Josh has led both Reform and Conservative congregations, and has been shaped by his studies with Orthodox and Renewal teachers as well. In 2021 Rabbi Josh left his congregation to found Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish as a platform for Jewish culture and ideas to flourish outside of religious spaces.
Art/Lab, which he co-created with Shoshana grew out of this work. Rabbi Josh has an MHL from Hebrew Union College and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School. He lives in Portland with his wife Channah and their three children.
We are honored to be partnering with the following organizations as thought partners, sites for our gatherings and workshops, exhibition spaces and homes for future projects:
Art/Lab is proud to be supported by the following local and national funds among many other patron donors:
