Moral Compass: Artists Respond to Crises

Temple Judea Museum exhibition January – March 2021

The pandemic crisis is a Rorschach test for the entire global community.  Every part of our personal identities and our global political system needs to be re-examined.  This extends to our attitudes on class, race, sexuality, and religion.  At times, the problems involved in the allocation of resources pits groups of people against each other, necessitating that our problems need communal solutions.  Whether we like it or not, in order to survive we need to realize how interconnected our world is.

On a personal level this has informed every decision I now make.  Being 71 years old, and in a high risk health demographic, I am intensely aware of “time running out”.  All my present choices as to who I will see or not see, what activities I will, or will not engage in are based on those issues.

Sociologically, I observe certain mass delusions. People wanting to believe that, when they desire to do something or see someone in particular, they are much safer than the actual scientific reality.  

However, on the positive side I now enjoy an intensity in a more “pure” form than ever before.  Whether I am doing art work, being with a loved one, reading a book, my choices on what is and is not important to me have never been clearer than now. To conclude, all of us it seems, on a personal and political level need to reevaluate what our priorities and values are and perhaps regroup.

Rochelle Marcus Dinkin