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‘Snapshots from the Garden of Eden’ features 11 large-scale tableau images with representing characters and passages from Leaves From The Garden Of Eden. The series includes modernized scenes from each of the four primary types of tales: fairy tales, folktales, supernatural tales and mystical tales. I feature the rich and ethnically diverse characters made up of divine royalty, temptresses, supernatural spirits, and Hasidic figures that star in these ancient dramas. I challenge the viewer with themes of destiny, temptation, justice, wisdom, blind faith and circumstance. Dreamscapes and symbolism are staples within my work as it is in these early narratives. I am proud to present their contemporary counterparts.

Leaves From The Garden Of Eden is a collection of 100 Jewish fairytales, folktales, mythical and supernatural tales collected and retold by folklorist Howard Schwartz. These rich fables are found in rabbinic legends, biblical commentary, kabalistic texts and Hasidic tales that originate from all over the world. The book will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, September 2017, conceived by Pierre- François Galpin, Assistant Curator, and is being collaboratively organized by Galpin and Chief Curator Renny Pritikin . The exhibition will include works by twelve international contemporary artists and will explore themes of transformation, metamorphosis, good and evil, political metaphors, and storytelling in contemporary art. I have been invited to participate and produce photographic tableaux, inspired by this tradition of storytelling and specifically from a Jewish perspective.

About author:

Dina Goldstein is a Canadian photographer working with large-scale tableau, exploring elements of the human condition, through the lens of Pop Surrealism. Dina’s career began as a photojournalist and editorial and photographer. She describes her early work as photoanthropology, where she documented and exhibited portraits of Palestinians, Gamblers, Teenagers, Weightlifters, Wrestlers and various other subcultures. Dina was inspired by personal events when she created the highly conceptual ‘Fallen Princesses’ series 2007-2009. The series questions the “happily ever after” motif created by Disney and Western society. The project was a huge online success and continuously goes viral. She continued with a tradition of fine detailed productions with her second major body of work ‘In the Dollhouse’, 2012, a 10 part sequential narrative that takes place within a very pink adult sized Dollhouse belonging to Barbie and Ken. Dina has won numerous awards such as the Arte Laguna Grand Prize, which invited her to attend a residency in India. That experience inspired ‘Gods Of Suburbia’, 2014, a most complex photographic initiative. The work is a visual analysis of religious faith within the context of the modern forces of technology, science and secularism. Dina released Modern Girl, 2016, a series inspired by Chinese advertising posters of the 1930’s. Modern Girl examines identity, gender roles, diasporic cultures, and consumerism. Dina was awarded the Prix Virginia in 2014, an International Prize for Women, and invited to Paris where an exhibit was mounted. Dina continues to create new work and exhibits at festivals, public galleries, museums and commercial galleries internationally.

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