The creation of three South African artists, this moving installation is a memorial to the murdered Jews of the city of Kaunas (known as Kovno to its Jewish community) in Lithuania. Born from over a decade of research, including interviews with Lithuanians who have lived in the area since before the holocaust, the exhibition breaks the silence and communal amnesia surrounding the genocide of Kovno's Jewish population, dealing with what the artists describe as “a shadow- a sadness and a silence that covered an unspoken trauma.”

The exhibition, which first debuted in Lithuania, includes a reproduction of a 1939 Lithuanian telephone book listing the names and details of all the Jews who subsequently perished in the holocaust. Other notable works in the exhibition include an embroidered map of Lithuania’s killing sites created by artist Yda Walt and a haunting Yiddish soundscape created by award-winning composer Philip Miller. The installation is complemented by images taken by world renowned photographer David Goldblatt that relate the experiences of South African Jews who have journeyed to Lithuania in search of their roots.

Haunting and atmospheric, Where is Kovno? pays tribute to the Lithuanian Jewry and its unbreakable links to the current South African Jewish community and also presents a cautionary tale of the dangers of xenophobia and its power to rapidly dehumanise a community.

Sun Oct 22 & Oct 29 at 11:15 Artist Walkabout with Yda Walt