Koffler Centre of the Arts

One Sunday afternoon per month during The Synagogue at Babyn Yar exhibition, the Koffler will host a Family Activity—a free creative workshop for children aged 10 and up accompanied by an adult companion. Programmes will start with a visit to the gallery, focused on a specific theme or object, followed by a guided hands-on activity.

Please register in advance to guarantee your spot, though we will try our best to accommodate walk-ins.

Portrait Pebbles are small river stones that have faces drawn onto them. The faces are of Holocaust victims. Participants are given a pebble, a black marker and a photo of a victim’s face. They are given a brief introduction to the basics of portraiture, and invited to draw the victim's face onto the pebble. When finished, the stones can be placed anywhere in a classroom setting, as a small act of remembrance.

The purpose of Portrait Pebbles is not to create a ‘realistic’ or ‘true’ likeness of the victim. The finished product is sure to be imperfect. Rather, by spending time looking at victims' faces, participants might reflect upon who they were, and how they lived and died. They may also come to appreciate that these were real people like us, whose lives were brutally cut short.

Portrait Pebbles creates a memorial in the classroom as individual as the the victims themselves. By creating a one-on-one connection between students of today and the victims of the past, it is hoped that the memory of the deceased will not be forgotten. Indeed, the real memorial exists in the minds of those who 'do not forget.'

It is also hoped that Portrait Pebbles leads to further learning about the Holocaust and/or other genocides, which in turn highlights the importance of tolerance in today's world.

Dr. Alexandra Karl created this programme to honour the memory of all Holocaust victims. After sharing the story of her family, she combines a drawing tutorial with creative writing prompts to help participants create their own Portrait Pebble. The activity concludes by reading quotes that remind us about the importance of tolerance for Others. Alexandra has been bringing this programme to classrooms since 2012 and strongly believes that “those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.”

Dr. Alexandra Karl is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She trained as an art historian in Ottawa (BFA), Munich (MA) and Cambridge (PhD). She worked at Munich’s Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and has taught at Utah Valley University and the University of Guelph. She has published scholarly articles on 19th Cent. painting, worked as a critic in the American West, and curated exhibitions such as Wildfires in Utah Art, Homes and Lands. She now lives in Guelph, Ontario and her projects can be found on www.alexandra-karl.com and www.portraitpebbles.com.

Hands-On Workshop: Portrait Pebbles