Dignifying the Dead: Art as a Personal Act of Memorialization

Panel discussion with artists Robin L. Bernstein, Mirka Knaster, and Andrée Singer Thompson

2:00 pm | Helzel Study Room

Jewish Arts and Bookfest
Sunday, May 3, 2026

at UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley,  CA

Art has the power to express what so often cannot be articulated in words. It can create a sense of presence in the face of absence. At times, it even remembers the history of what some would prefer to disavow and forget. When traditional Jewish practices are impossible to enact in order to dignify and honor the dead, artists find aesthetic ways to memorialize them. Bay Area fiber artists Robin L. Bernstein and Mirka Knaster and ceramicist Andrée Singer Thompson will discuss their visual and textural efforts to counter erasure and denial of those whose lives were destroyed simply for being Jewish. As portals to the past, their 2-D and 3-D artworks become vital repositories of emotion and meaning, culture and memory.

About Robin L Bernstein

Robin L Bernstein is a San Francisco Bay Area artist and educator who has been making and exhibiting her work for over 40 years. She studied fine art in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, St Paul, Minnesota and received her Masters of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in Drawing and Painting.

Robin has worked with a wide variety of media and processes including drawing, painting, fiber, sculpture, and wood carving. The string painting technique she has practiced for the past 20 years developed after learning about the material and spiritual practices of the Huichol Indians of northern central Mexico. In 2024, she completed an 18 work series on the Holocaust titled Beauty and Terror, which includes events and stories of the Holocaust which works to reveal the capacity humans have to do harm as well as perform acts of redemption and courage.

Robin’s current work incorporates urgent and contemporary issues she feels need closer examination and reflection, including the rise of white supremacy, antisemitism, climate change and artificial intelligence. Her artworks function as educational opportunities, memorials, warnings, and singular beautiful objects worthy of inspection.

Robin is also a hand weaver. She is represented by Transmission Gallery in Oakland, CA.

About Mirka Knaster

A published author and fiber artist, Mirka Knaster writes and creates 2-D and 3-D work with textiles, handmade paper, and other materials in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Inspired by Nature, East Asian aesthetics, and 20th-century abstract art, she approaches the creative process as an open-ended improvisation, allowing pieces to emerge intuitively.

Mirka’s life began in a DP camp in southern Italy. As a young child, she immigrated to the U.S. with her Polish-born parents, both survivors of the Shoah. She is engaged in an ongoing series about diaspora as well as a project on her family’s history. Her award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and widely collected. As an independent curator, she highlights artists from diverse cultures. She is a member of the Surface Design Association, Discovery Gallery, Pacific Textile Arts, Fiber Dimensions, and a former board member of the Textile Arts Council, Fine Arts Museums, SF.

About Andrée Singer Thompson

Andrée Singer Thompson is a long time Bay Area artist and teacher who has exhibited internationally and nationally. Much of her sculpture and interactive and educational site specific installations deal with individual and communal survival issues. She often collaborates with other artists on public art projects involving community participation. Her main focus since 2005 has been making art about and teaching environmental and social justice activist art.

Her ceramic works specialize in combining raku-fired metal and clay, and anagama wood-fired works. She lives in Berkeley, teaches at Laney College, and gives numerous workshops around the country. She developed and taught a summer Eco-Art Literacy program and is active in the eco-art movement as a member of board of directors of the Women Ecoartists Dialogue. She lives in a yellow house with purple steps and has chickens and compost in the garden.