Two-person exhibition by Yona Verwer and Ellen Alt.
Presented by the Hyams Museum, Abraham’s Table of Long Island & Jewish Art Salon
The exhibition is a visual exploration of water and ice, examining the intertwined crises of ocean pollution and melting glaciers.
Opening reception Sunday, October 18, 3–5 p.m.
Program:
Interfaith clergy and artists’ panel, Reflection on Treasuring Our Common Home: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Teachings on Stewardship of the Earth;
Gallery walk with the artists, and refreshments.
Hyams Museum at Temple Beth Sholom
401 Roslyn Road, Roslyn Heights, NY 11577
516-621-2288
About the exhibition:
Once the planet’s living waters, the oceans have become a stark symbol of humanity’s environmental impact. Plastic pollution has reached even the Mariana Trench, while microplastics are now found in marine life, drinking water, and the human body. Growing up near the North Sea in the Netherlands, a country shaped by rivers, canals, and coastlines, much of it below sea level, Verwer developed a profound relationship with water that continues to inform this work.
At the same time, melting glaciers are transforming the Earth’s landscape. As sea levels rise and threaten coastal communities, land long buried beneath ice is being revealed. Through mixed-media works, Alt explores the shifting balance between water and land, imagining what may emerge as the ice recedes. The glaciers are envisioned as vaults of planetary memory, preserving Earth’s history within their frozen depths. As they melt, they release those memories, offering both a record of the past and a reminder of humanity’s enduring capacity for connection and communication.
Healing the world’s waters and ice is not optional; it is essential to healing the planet itself. As Pirkei Avot 2:16 teaches: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
Verwer’s Fluid Futures series depicts marine life entangled in, or navigating through, plastic debris, reflecting both the fragility of ocean ecosystems and the urgent responsibility to protect them. In Jewish tradition, Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world”) and the related concept of Tikkun HaYam (“repairing the seas”) call upon humanity to become active partners in restoring creation.
Alt’s The White Series, is a ten-part narrative, exploring the delicate equilibrium between ice and water, salt and fresh, liquid and frozen. It asks what is lost as glaciers disappear and what new landscapes, histories, and possibilities are revealed in their absence.
Embedded throughout the series is the same call to Tikkun Olam: the responsibility to restore balance, sustain life, and protect the interconnected ecosystems upon which all species depend.
Both artists’ practice is deeply rooted in Jewish environmental ethics. The Torah instructs humanity “to till and tend” the Earth (Genesis 2:15), while the principle of Bal Tashchit (“do not destroy”), originating in Deuteronomy and expanded by the rabbis of the Talmud, prohibits wastefulness and needless destruction. Together, these teachings provide an enduring ethical framework that informs every aspect of the work, positioning art as both witness and call to action.
Co-partnered with the Jewish Art Salon and Abraham’s Table of Long Island
RSVP required
