By Cailin Acosta in La Mesa, California
What can a family photograph, an old cup or a century-old book reveal about lives largely forgotten? For Brooklyn-based Jewish artist Danielle Alhassid, such objects offer a way to recover overlooked voices and explore the connections among Jewish identity, migration, memory and storytelling.
Alhassid discussed her multidisciplinary work during the second installment of the Jewish Artist Spotlight, a virtual series presented by 70 Faces Media with support from UJA-Federation of New York. Hosted by Lisa Keys, special projects editor at 70 Faces Media, the conversation explored how historical research inspires Alhassid’s stop-motion animation, printmaking and performance art.
Alhassid describes herself as both an artist and a storyteller, drawing on archival photographs, historical texts and personal objects to explore experiences that connect generations. Stop-motion animation has become central to her practice, allowing images and materials to transform while leaving traces of the creative process visible.
One project began with a poem by Celia Dropkin, a Yiddish-language poet whose work Alhassid discovered after moving from the Netherlands to New York. Written about a century ago, the poem describes a woman’s hands undergoing strange transformations.
As Alhassid adjusted to life in a new city, she began sketching people’s hands while navigating New York’s streets and subway system. Those observations eventually informed an animated interpretation of Dropkin’s poem, in which hands merge and change, reflecting questions of identity, bodily autonomy and migration.
Alhassid described her connection to the poet as “collecting ghosts.” Dropkin’s words became a companion during subway rides and studio work, demonstrating how a writer from another generation could speak to a contemporary experience.
Family history provided inspiration for another project. In an old photograph, Alhassid’s great-great-grandmother holds a cup from Japan and smokes a cigarette, a habit she acquired while living in Cuba. The objects suggested a life shaped by movement across cultures and continents.
After discussing the photograph with her grandmother, Alhassid received two cups that had belonged to her ancestor. She incorporated them into a performance featuring images of women’s hands across three generations: her own, her grandmother’s and her great-great-grandmother’s. The work connected tangible family heirlooms with the stories passed down through her family.
Alhassid’s research also led her to the Tsene-rene, a Yiddish text first printed in the 16th century that made biblical stories accessible to readers who spoke Yiddish but might not have had the Hebrew literacy or educational opportunities to read other religious texts. Widely circulated, the book became an important part of Jewish women’s reading traditions.
While researching Jewish women at the Amsterdam Museum, Alhassid found that many surviving objects documenting Jewish life belonged to wealthy men. The Tsene-rene stood out, but the women who read it largely remained unidentified in the historical record.
Inspired by that absence, Alhassid created an installation placing the book at the center of five screens displaying stop-motion imagery drawn from different editions and illustrations. Figures appear to gather around the text before dissolving back into its pages, evoking generations of readers whose individual stories may never be recovered.
The installation is scheduled to be presented at City College of New York in collaboration with its Special Collections, with an opening planned for Nov. 4. Additional public programs are planned, and the exhibition will include new work based on research conducted in Venice.
For Alhassid, these projects are not attempts to reconstruct the past completely. Instead, she uses the gaps in historical records as openings for creative exploration, inviting audiences to consider whose experiences have been preserved and whose have been overlooked.
Her interest in the intersection of Jewish life and social justice was reinforced by a prayer she encountered at New York’s Tenement Museum. Written by a Jewish woman struggling to observe Shabbat because of difficult working conditions, the prayer connected religious practice with economic hardship. It prompted Alhassid to investigate Yiddish literature, immigration, feminism and the social rights of Jewish women.
Her own experience of moving to New York also shaped her questions about home and belonging. Rather than viewing home as a fixed place, she considers how languages, memories and stories can create a sense of connection across generations and borders.
Alhassid first discovered stop-motion animation while studying at Cooper Union. Although she had expected to become a painter, she was drawn to animation’s ability to combine images, materials and time. Her work often incorporates simple materials such as paper, ink and clay, with fingerprints and other marks left visible.
“I want people to participate with me in the act of making,” she said, describing an approach that encourages viewers to interpret the work and assemble their own understanding of its stories.
Alhassid is also developing a publication inspired by letters written by Rosa Luxemburg while imprisoned. Luxemburg wrote about birds that kept her company during her isolation, and Alhassid is exploring the writings through a project envisioned as a field guide to the texts and birds.
For aspiring artists, Alhassid emphasized persistence, regular creative practice and collaboration. She encouraged artists to keep sketchbooks, make small works and build relationships with others who can offer inspiration and support.
Through archival research, animation and performance, Alhassid treats Jewish history not as a collection of fixed accounts but as an ongoing conversation. By bringing forgotten texts, family objects and overlooked women into view, she invites audiences to consider how art can reconnect the present with voices from the past.
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Cailin Acosta is the assistant editor of the San Diego Jewish World.