Hatred and hope
Published 8:39 am Friday, November 17, 2017
Jeffrey Jamner is senior director of education and community arts at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts and a second generation Holocaust survivor. Wednesday evening, Jamner discussed the traveling exhibit “Never Again,” currently on display at Danville High School’s Gravel Hall Performing Arts Center. The exhibit consists of 20 student-created murals from Western Kentucky University’s summer program for Verbally and Mathematically Precocious Youth (VAMPY) over the past 25 years. The exhibit runs through Nov. 30 and is primarily open to student groups during that time. Individuals or other groups interested in visiting the exhibit should contact Jane Dewey, Director of Arts Education at the Danville Schools, at (859) 936-8416 or jane.dewey@danville.kyschools.us.
Darrell Rickmers, speech and drama teacher at John W. Bate Middle School, studies a mural at the “Never Again” exhibit which was open to the public at Danville High School Wednesday evening. He said this particular artwork takes the viewer from one type of hatred during Nazi Germany’s Holocaust, to a different racism hatred more recently. He said his students, “are concerned it’s happening again” and they want to figure out how to stop it. Rickmers’ students will be visiting the Holocaust exhibit on Tuesday.
When discussing a particular section of a mural depicting the horrors of the Holocaust, Jamners points to a face showing extreme anguish. Within some of the murals, however, Jamner said signs of hope can be seen.