Fringes

JULY – OCTOBER 2023

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In a new work, multidisciplinary artist, Mindy Stricke explores the unpredictable landscape of parenting a young teen. Fringes maps the celebration of the artist’s daughter, Noa, becoming a bat mitzvah. This milestone became an expedition for Stricke towards radical acceptance – of her daughter, and ultimately, of herself. The artist creates a wearable map in the form of an evocative tallit (a prayer shawl with fringes on each corner) as a gift for Noa, which marks her place in the city where she became a bat mitzvah and within her lineage. Montreal’s environs merge with a geography formed from images of Noa and relatives when they became b’nei mitzvah at age thirteen. The invented topography reflects the artist’s experience as a neurodivergent, queer, polyamorous Jewish woman gaining the courage to question inherited maps, and also trusting her children to discover their own paths. When a new route must be charted, those on the fringes lead the way.

Learn more about details in the map and how to share your own reflections on being thirteen, click here.

Mindy Stricke is a multi-disciplinary artist, based in Toronto and Montreal, mapping the relationship between authenticity and belonging. Through a participatory research process and forms including photography, audio, video, and interactive installations, she abstracts and transforms everyday objects, texts, and stories to reveal new perspectives of the landscapes of our lives. She investigates what it means to tell the truth about topics ranging from motherhood to grief to women’s sexual pleasure, and has exhibited and screened her work internationally. Most recently, her short film Melting Point has screened in two dozen festivals, winning awards including Best Experimental Short at the Orchid Lesbian Film Festival in Buenos Aires, and Best Erotic Short at the Peephole Film Festival in Guadalajara. A transplanted New Yorker now living in Canada, she is an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University.

With thanks to Sara Borer, Na’ama Freeman, Rabbi Moishe Steigmann / Own Your Judaism, Aaron Levy, and the Mile End Chavurah.