The Objects of Love

Exhibition

Holocaust Awareness Ireland is delighted to present The Objects of Love exhibition by Oliver Sears.

 

The Objects of Love tells the story of one Jewish family before during and after the Second World War. Describing the fate of individual lives torn asunder in Nazi-occupied Poland and beyond, it is told through a curated collection of precious family objects, photographs, and documents. London born, Dublin based art dealer, Oliver Sears vividly brings to life this extreme edge of European history where his mother, Monika and grandmother, Kryszia are the beating hearts of an epic and intimate story of love, loss, and survival. The exhibition is accompanied a beautifully designed illustrated guide booklet as well as an audio narration. 

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Described by Oprah Winfrey as “powerful and moving” when she saw it in its last iteration at 92nd Street Y in September 2023 it was originally presented in Dublin in 2022/23  by The Office of Public Works (an Irish Government State Body) in association with Holocaust Awareness Ireland. Some 35,000 people visited the exhibition in Dublin Castle, the seat of the Irish state. Visitors  included the President, Taoiseach, (Prime Minister) as well as the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister for Finance, and a range of cross party ministers as well as members of the Supreme Court.

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This poignant exhibition, produced by Catherine Punch, was opened by film director Lenny Abrahamson, who is on the advisory committee of Holocaust Awareness Ireland. There were also several talks and events with members of the Irish art and literary world including Roddy Doyle, Belsen survivor, Tomi Reichental, Oliver and Alexandra Senfft, the granddaughter of Hanns Elard Ludin. Previous events hosted by HAI include discussions with Lenny Abrahamson, Daniel Mendelsohn and David Baddiel.

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Holocaust Awareness Ireland was honoured to be part of 92NY’s 150th year celebration, which saw The Objects of Love show in a New York City institution, incomparable for its contribution to art, culture and politics.

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In an immersive audio guide, visitors are invited to listen to Oliver Sears narrate the lives of his mother Monika and grandmother Kryszia in an epic story of love, loss, and survival. Using the fragments hidden away and saved through a period of nearly unimaginable horror and violence, The Objects of Love is a record of a family tenaciously refusing to let its story — and its sense of human dignity — be wiped away. At once a powerful document of witness and a bulwark against a rising tide of contemporary antisemitic sentiment, The Objects of Love is a multi-sensory storytelling experience that commands attention with the most fragile and ephemeral materials — materials that have, against all odds, survived erasure.  

 

Please see our media page to read the extensive press coverage.

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