This week I presented my work at SODA Salon. The event is a platform for staff within the School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Met and postgraduate researchers to share and receive feedback on projects and work in progress. The Q&A was fantastic. I received questions about the nature of the Holodomor, who Jerry Berman was and the role of the other letter senders and receivers in his network. There were questions about the narrative in Russia, both past and present, my future plans for the project, whether it is a historical or creative piece of work and the idea of letters as dialogue. I spoke about the imperialist narrative from Russia and the relationships between the Holodomor and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the significance of Jerry Berman’s letters and the insight, and methods Israel used to document his brother’s testimony and distribute it to friends and family. I spoke about my future plans and the work I am intending to complete this summer as part of the HREC Research Grant I was awarded. Critically I spoke about the role of art. What creative practice brings and the inspiration from Langer’s work following the Holocaust. I want to include the gaps in knowledge, the archival gaps and the gaps in memory in my current and future work. I also spoke about the long term plans, the development of the project as a commemoration for the Holodomor in 2032. The project I presented was ‘Memory, Testimony and the Imagination: Jerry Berman’s Letters’. The presentation was the work I presented at the RUTA Annual Conference at Uzhhorod National University in June 2025.
