L IFESTYLES /C ULTURE
Exhibit Links Climate Change, Art, Tikkun Olam
AR T
SELAH MAYA ZIGHELBOIM | JE STAFF
AT THIS POINT in Diane
Burko’s artistic career, she
needs a little more than just the
promise of an audience to get
her to agree to an exhibition.

So when a Congregation
Rodeph Shalom board member
told her about the potential
educational and social pro-
gramming she could have at
the synagogue, Burko’s interest
was piqued.

Th at’s how Th e Philadelphia
Museum of Jewish Art, located
at Rodeph Shalom on Broad
Street, ended up with “Repairing
Our Earth (Tikkun Olam),”
an exhibition of paintings and
photography around the theme
of climate change. Th e exhibit is
now open through April 2.

A synagogue is not her
usual venue, Burko noted.

She is a nationally renowned
artist, and her work has been
shown in numerous muse-
ums and galleries, including
her most recent exhibit at the
National Academy of Sciences
in Washington, D.C. But with
this exhibit, Rodeph Shalom
gave her the opportunity to
reach out to new audiences.

“Being that I’ve had, I don’t
know, maybe 100 shows or
more all over the country, I
don’t need another show,” said
Burko, who is Jewish. “I don’t
need a resume at this point.”
But Burko is using this
exhibit as a platform to speak
about climate change. She gave
a lecture to the congregation
in the sanctuary in December,
and spoke to some of the syn-
agogue’s Hebrew school stu-
dents in January.

“I’ve been an artist for over
40 years, and basically, the
content of my work has always
been the landscape — mostly
monumental, geological kind of
landscape,” Burko said. “I did
a project on volcanoes, where
I went to many sites. I did a
project on the Grand Canyon.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Nunatak Glacier #1 and #2
Geology’s in my blood.”
For this exhibit, Rodeph
Shalom reached out to Cynthia
Veloric, a researcher at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, to be
the guest curator. Veloric worked
with Burko to conceive and exe-
cute “Repairing Our Earth.”
Veloric started by looking
for a new way to frame Burko’s
work that would connect to the
synagogue. She found that con-
nection through the concept of
tikkun olam. Veloric included
quotes from Jewish scholars
and texts about caring for the
Earth throughout the exhibit.

“I took that phrase — tik-
kun olam — and made it
more specifi c to repairing the
Earth and our seas, creating
an action in thought and deed
that would help repair the
physical Earth,” said Veloric,
who is involved with Beth
David Reform Congregation in
Gladwyne and is a supporter
of the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia. “I felt that
her work on behalf of climate
change ... is a social action as
well as a work of art. Everything
she does is connected to her
mission to educate and inform
and hopefully change people’s
minds about the state of the
planet right now.”
Landscapes have long cap-
tured Burko’s imagination. Th ey
combine color and composition
in a way that speak to her. Even
before environmental activism
became a part of her work, she
would go out into landscapes to
paint and photograph.

Burko, a native New Yorker,
movement, though
her art didn’t delve
into that issue.

Over the years, she
learned more about
climate change from
Al Gore’s Inconvenient
Truth and Elizabeth
Kolbert’s Field Notes
From a Catastrophe.

Climate change was
transforming her
Diane Burko landscapes, so she
began to incorporate
moved to Philadelphia to go to environmental activism into
graduate school at the University her art, blending her political
of Pennsylvania. Aft er complet- and artistic selves.

“Climate change was in
ing her MFA in 1969, she stayed
in the city because real estate the air in the 2000s,” Burko
was cheaper. She could aff ord said. “It occurred to me that I
her own studio and got a job should be doing more than just
teaching at the Community making beautiful images of
landscapes. I needed to make
College of Philadelphia.

She described herself as a sure they would continue to be
“political animal.” In the ’70s, with us, that the planet wasn’t
she was active in the feminist going to be destroyed with
fi res and droughts and fl oods.

I decided my work could have
more meaning for me and for
the audience if it had a social
practice component in it.”
Her work has taken her
around the world, from the
glaciers of the Antarctic to
the coral reefs of the Pacifi c
Ocean, to bear witness to cli-
mate change. She has studied
NASA and NOAA repeat pho-
tography and has spoken to
scientists about the issue. She
has also attended conferences,
where she has talked about
how art can communicate the
issue of climate change.

“I’m steeped in it,” Burko
said. “It’s a wonderful way to
bring a lot of who I am together.

My work and my beliefs are all
one piece.” ●
szighelboim@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
NAME: PAUL’S RUN - DIRECT; WIDTH: 5.5 IN; DEPTH: 5.5 IN; COLOR:
BLACK PLUS ONE; AD NUMBER: 00080278
Our residents have
NO winter worries!
You can take advantage
of the maintenance
free lifestyle.

Contact us for more information or to
schedule a personal lunch and tour at
1-877-859-9444 PaulsRun.org/Save
9896 Bustleton Avenue • Philadelphia, PA 19115
JEWISH EXPONENT
MARCH 7, 2019
17