Koffler Arts

The Synagogue at Babyn Yar: Turning the Nightmare of Evil into a Shared Dream of Good

Koffler Arts is a cultural platform that explores critical ideas and concerns of our time through exhibitions, publications, performances, literary events and digital initiatives. We examine complex issues through transformative art experiences that stimulate intercultural dialogue and position Jewish identity in conversation with diverse perspectives and global voices.

As a Jewish organization, in everything we do we value inclusiveness, equality and justice, giving tangible expression to the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam. 

Our programming seeks to help people engage with complex issues in respectful, constructive ways, through exhibitions, literary events, performances, digital initiatives, publications and educational activities, offering transformative arts experiences and stimulating intercultural conversations and global dialogues.

These principles underpin the Koffler’s engagement with today’s keenest contemporary creative minds in producing and presenting art and experiences that help us shape our shared cultural life and define our values.

Address: Youngplace, 180 Shaw St., # 104-105, Toronto, ON, M6J 2W5
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Related Events

Archived

October 17, 2024

Join Koffler Arts for our third and last guided tour of Botannica Tirannica by Giselle Beiguelman with Head of Artistic Engagement at Koffler Arts Josh Heuman.

Archived

October 19, 2024

Koffler Arts is excited to present an evening of music in the gallery to mark the end of our current exhibition Botannica Tirannica.

Archived

September 19, 2024

In conversation with Jennifer Podemski in partnership with Koffler Arts and Jewish& at the Miles Nadal JCC.

Archived

September 25, 2024

A tour of Botannica Tirannica by Giselle Beiguelman with Head of Artistic Engagement at Koffler Arts Josh Heuman.

Archived

September 12, 2024

Learn about Jewish herbal and culinary traditions and folklore with Shoresh and Koffler Arts.

Archived

August 18, 2024

Koffler Arts is excited to collaborate with Dr. Jonathan Ferrier to welcome a group to the Crane Gathering Space.

Archived

August 28, 2024

to September 2, 2024

Tunni Kraus is travelling from Melbourne, Australia to debut a new body of paintings.

Upcoming

April 26, 2025

to May 4, 2025

A powerful thriller from Toronto’s Human Cargo and winner of the 2019 Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Production, Outstanding Direction and Outstanding New Play.

Archived

August 14, 2024

A tour of the exhibition Botannica Tirannica with Head of Artistic Engagement Josh Heuman.

Upcoming

January 21, 2025

to January 23, 2025

Koffler Arts is excited to announce the upcoming production of the chamber opera The Journal of Hélène Berr by Bernard Foccroulle.

Archived

October 24, 2024

to October 27, 2024

Sankofa is an invitation to honour a difficult history while moving toward a more promising future.

Archived

June 9, 2024

Isaac Crosby will give a guided tour of The Garden of Resilience outside the Koffler Arts gallery at Youngplace.

Archived

June 2, 2024

Giselle Beiguelman & Dr. Jonathan Ferrier of Botannica Tirannica chat with Josh Heuman, Head of Artistic Engagement at Koffler Arts.

Archived

April 10, 2024

As the DECADE exhibition continues, Koffler Arts features a Gallery Talk with artists Barbara Astman and one of her former students, Midi Onodera.

Archived

March 24, 2024

Participants will learn more about each of the artists’ works and have the opportunity to ask questions.

Archived

March 26, 2024

Dr. Natalia Romik presents her artistic tribute to the hiding places that Jews improvised in their efforts to survive the Holocaust.

Archived

April 7, 2024

The ARC Ensemble (Artists of The Royal Conservatory) is among Canada’s most distinguished cultural ambassadors with multiple Grammy Award nominations.

Archived

February 25, 2024

Koffler Arts presents a Curator’s Walkthrough by David Liss in combination with a Gallery Talk by exhibiting artist Ruth Adler.

Archived

February 7, 2024

This free talk by Dr. Peter Harris focused on the Jewish contributions during the Weimar Republic, between the end of the Imperial period in 1918 and the beginning of Nazi Germany in 1933.

Archived

February 1, 2024

A talk with musical interludes by Andrew Burashko, Founder and Artistic Director of the Art of Time Ensemble, in the lead up to the concert Dance to the Abyss.

Archived

February 23, 2024

to February 25, 2024

Experience the decadent cabaret and jazz-inspired music that captured the zeitgeist of a culture on a path to catastrophe.

Archived

November 5, 2023

This half-day Symposium focusing on a multitude of topics relating to Judaism, memorials, and identities.

Archived

October 18, 2023

Accessible meditation, exploring embodied experience of being present, releasing tension through breath, feeling compassion, and support.

Archived

October 15, 2023

Rafael Goldchain will discuss a range of his photographs while dwelling on biographical details, his production process, and aesthetic and philosophical reflections.

Archived

October 15, 2023

A panel discussion exploring the intersections of art, architecture, and memory through the lens of the Synagogue at Babyn Yar, Ukraine.

Archived

October 22, 2023

to October 29, 2023

This research-informed play explores themes of womanhood, trauma, sisterhood and resilience.  

Archived

September 23, 2023

to September 24, 2023

Visit the Koffler Gallery in its extended opening hours, and listen to traditional klezmer music until midnight.

Archived

September 12, 2023

Koffler Gallery extends an invitation to those working in all pedagogical fields to attend our Fall 2023 Educator Open House. 

Archived

September 10, 2023

Koffler Arts presents a poetry reading by Gili Haimovich, a prizewinning Israeli Canadian poet writing bilingually.

Archived

September 10, 2023

The Koffler Centre for the Arts and Holy Blossom Temple are pleased to present a selection of the 2023 shortlisted authors in two lively and insightful panel conversations.

Archived

August 24, 2023

to September 6, 2023

Koffler Arts will present a series of four film screenings to complement the exhibition The Synagogue at Babyn Yar: Turning the Nightmare of Evil into a Shared Dream of Good.

Archived

September 10, 2023

One Sunday afternoon per month during The Synagogue at Babyn Yar exhibition, the Koffler will host a Family Activity.

Archived

August 27, 2023

What does it mean to host an exhibition about a synagogue that tells the story of a site that is somewhere else?

Archived

August 22, 2023

to September 12, 2023

Participants will respond to visual cues and prompts inspired by The Synagogue at Babyn Yar exhibition, and will be invited to share their first-draft compositions.

Archived

August 13, 2023

Join the Koffler for a workshop with Laya Crust to learn about how to write Hebrew in calligraphy!

Archived

July 16, 2023

Rabbi Alisa Zilbershtein will speak about her life and the Jewish community in Kyiv before and during the ongoing war, and her experiences.

Archived

July 9, 2023

Artist and writer Marisa Kelly invites kids ages 10+ and their adult companions to discuss what it means to be a photojournalist, then build a pinhole camera.

Archived

June 1, 2023

to June 21, 2023

The Koffler presents a series of free community writing workshops in collaboration with the Writers Collective of Canada (WCC).

Archived

May 18, 2023

Lenka Lichtenberg performs music from her latest album, Thieves of Dreams: Songs of Theresienstadt’s Secret Poetess, which was awarded the 2023 Juno Awards for Global Music Album Of The Year.

Archived

April 18, 2023

This discussion will focus on the history of Babyn Yar, the synagogue, and future plans for the site.

Archived

April 17, 2023

Opening reception of the world-premiere exhibition of The Synagogue at Babyn Yar: Turning the Nightmares of Evil into a shared Dream of Good.

Archived

February 24, 2023

The collective conversation will focus on SIREN artworks to interrogate participant initiated ideas, premises and frameworks.

Archived

February 22, 2023

Through the collective explorations of Art, Power & Money, and Art, Nature, Thresholds & Borders, participants will ask: How do we respond to foundational principles and ideas about our sense of community?

Archived

February 21, 2023

A screening of An Opera for the World (2017) as part of the public program for SIREN / nichola feldman-kiss.

Archived

January 16, 2023

Join us for an artist talk with nichola feldman-kiss and UK-based curator Karen Alexander as they discuss the current exhibition SIREN.

Archived

November 23, 2021

Awards will be announced in four categories: Fiction, History, Non-Fiction and Young Adult/Children’s, with winning authors in each category attending.

Archived

November 16, 2021

to November 18, 2021

The Koffler is delighted to present three virtual panels featuring shortlisted Vine Awards authors on November 16, 17 and 18, 2021. 

Archived

October 15, 2021

to October 17, 2021

An exhibition of video installations that explores themes of climate change and environmental crisis.

Archived

April 15, 2021

In this one-hour workshop, folks will explore the process of mindfulness to create abstract images based on their emotions

Archived

April 7, 2021

In a discussion focused on contentious collecting and preservation practices rooted in extractive imperialism and systematic looting, curators Candice Hopkins, Dan Hicks and Julie Crooks will consider frameworks for the restitution of art and material culture.

Archived

May 20, 2021

Award-winning author Riva Lehrer will join writer and director, Chase Joynt to discuss the socially challenged body in her new memoir, Golem Girl.

Archived

April 13, 2021

to April 14, 2021

The Canadian launch of author Judy Batalion’s, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, in conversation with Toronto’s revered broadcaster and journalist, Garvia Bailey.

Archived

February 17, 2021

In an utterly unique approach to biography, On Love and Tyranny traces the life and work of the iconic German Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt, whose political philosophy and understandings of evil, totalitarianism, love, and exile prove essential amid the rise of the refugee crisis and authoritarian regimes around the world.

Archived

December 19, 2020

to December 20, 2020

We will explore how our geographical and cultural differences inform our peoples’ practices and responses, and question how we can bring each other value and the inherent artistic possibilities within these conversations.

Archived

November 11, 2020

Featuring four artists who engage with elements of fiction to address buried truths – Ivana Dizdar, Rosalie Favell and Anique Jordan, in conversation with moderator Madelyne Beckles.

Archived

November 2, 2020

A conversation between multidisciplinary artist Carol Sawyer and Chief Curator of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Michelle Jacques.

Archived

November 12, 2020

Celebrating the 2020 Vine Awards shortlisted history writers – Zelda Abramson, Matti Friedman, John Lynch, and Heidi J.S. Tworek – in conversation with juror Allan Levine.

Archived

November 10, 2020

Featuring the 2020 Vine Awards shortlisted non-fiction writers – Naomi K. Lewis, Ayelet Tsabari, and Diana Wichtel – in conversation with juror Judy Batalion.

Archived

November 18, 2020

A national awards program that honours both the best Canadian Jewish writers and non-Jewish Canadian authors who deal with Jewish subjects in Fiction, History, Non-Fiction, Young Adult/Children’s literature, and Poetry.

Archived

November 30, 2020

Bestselling author Catherine Bush speaks with Saleema Nawaz and reflects on human connectivity amidst world-changing events.

Archived

November 5, 2020

Four-time Giller Prize-nominated writer and visual artist Shani Mootoo will appear in an online conversation with another of Canada’s best-loved writers, Jane Urquhart.

Archived

October 26, 2020

The Koffler presents an online conversation with African-American, Jewish food writer, culinary and cultural historian and educator Michael W. Twitty.

Archived

October 21, 2020

Online conversations with the writers of Penguin Teen Canada’s Pocket Change Collective, a series of small books with big ideas by today’s leading youth activists and artists.

Archived

October 6, 2020

In This is What I Know About Art, arts writer and co-editor of Black Futures Kimberly Drew shows us that art and protest are inextricably linked.

Archived

September 29, 2020

In The New Queer Conscience, Voices4 Founder and LGBTQIA+ activist Adam Eli offers a candid and compassionate introduction to queer responsibility.

Archived

December 2, 2020

to December 6, 2020

Koffler Couture returns with The Curated Collection, featuring a smaller, curated collection of designer handbags, wallets and scarves in an online auction.

Archived

September 1, 2020

to September 15, 2020

An online art sale and fundraiser featuring 30 artworks by 32 artists who have been engaged with the Koffler Gallery and its audiences.

Related Exhibitions

Gallery

November 7, 2024

to December 15, 2024

Organized by Koffler Arts, the DECADE project celebrates 10 years since Youngplace at 180 Shaw St. opened as a vibrant hub for arts and culture in the west end of Toronto.

Gallery

August 28, 2024

to September 2, 2024

A series of abstract paintings by Tunni Kraus based on the mystical Yiddish text written by Der Nister. An Ashkenaz Festival off-site event.

Gallery

May 30, 2024

to October 20, 2024

Award-winning Brazilian artist Giselle Beiguelman explores how common botanical names both mirror and perpetuate societal prejudices against racial, cultural, gender, and social groups.

Gallery

February 22, 2024

to May 12, 2024

To acknowledge and celebrate the role the building and its tenants have played within the cultural ecology of Toronto over these past 10 years, Koffler Arts is excited to present DECADE, a group exhibition by eight contemporary artists currently or recently working in the building.

Gallery

April 17, 2023

to January 14, 2024

This international exhibition is brought together with assistance from Canadian architect Douglas Birkenshaw and through architectural photography by celebrated Dutch photographer Iwan Baan.

Gallery

November 2, 2022

to March 5, 2023

Artist nichola feldman-kiss explores global migration and flights from homelands in a multidisciplinary exhibition.

Gallery

December 3, 2021

to February 13, 2022

The Spiders and the Bees is a survey exhibition by French-Canadian, Venice based artist François Xavier Saint-Pierre, including his most recent body of work following a residency at the Villa Medici in Rome.

Gallery

September 25, 2021

to November 14, 2021

Sameer Farooq’s major solo exhibition that tackles the fraught and violent histories of anthropological and encyclopaedic museum collections, their colonial origins, structures and impulses.

Gallery

September 23, 2020

to November 15, 2020

Vancouver artist Carol Sawyer assembles a fiction as truthfully as possible to tell a needed story.

Virtual

August 18, 2020

to November 30, 2020

A Koffler Digital exhibition that uses food, and the cultures that surround it, to examine our relationships to one another, society and the world at large.

Virtual

July 6, 2020

to September 30, 2020

In collaboration with the Koffler Centre of the Arts, Youth Leaders from Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital took part in a unique photography project during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtual

July 4, 2016

to July 5, 2021

Self-Loving Jew by Jonathan Rotsztain is a series of autobiographical comics claiming a secular, cultural Jewish identity on Koffler Digital.

Virtual

April 13, 2020

to May 3, 2021

Eleventh House is a Koffler Digital project exploring the rituals of astrology reading and horoscope writing.

Virtual

November 4, 2019

to April 29, 2022

Thresholds is a new Koffler.Digital podcast hosted and produced by Maya Bedward in collaboration with members of Holland Bloorview’s Youth Advisory Council.