Plant Memory / Wooden Synagogues

This Project, which has been developed for several years, is a large-scale study, including historical research, papers, interviews and tours around Lithuania in searching for wooden synagogues. Lithuania unlike other European countries to date remains the largest number of wooden synagogues. Some of them appear for the brief moment before demolition, some are restored, some left for decay, while others adapted to living houses or structures of uncertain purpose. Wooden synagogues are unique objects of Jewish material heritage both in Lithuania and in whole Eastern Europe. At the moment we can count 17 extant wooden synagogues in the current territory of Lithuania. Under the name Plant Memory/Wooden Synagogues (lit. Augalų atmintis) this project is a continue research of rare architectural monuments and remnants of cultural memory around it in order to reconstruct the broken and tragic story of Lithuanian Jews, to restore the lost narrative. Plants from historic Jewish settlements, the ones found growing on endangered wooden monuments become the monument itself - the language of symbol and metaphor - translated into the medium of photography, not only showing the extent of the tragedy, but also by extending the capabilities of documentary storytelling, it returns a testimony of lost time and place.