NYU Bronfman Jewish Student Artist Fellowship
Congratulations to:
Ariel Abrahams
Mariyam Astaneha
Steven Benathan
Samuel Holleran
Eli Kaplan-Wildmann
Max Orenstein
Ramona Pringle
Anat Vovnoboy
Leia Weil
Check back SOON to learn more about each Fellow and the projects they are working on!
 | Steve Benathen was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A sophomore in Steinhardt, majoring in Communications, Steve is completing a book of poetry inspired by the words of great Jewish writers and thinkers. A huge fan of the Bronfman Center, Steve's other hobbies and activities include: writing (of course!), the oboe, foreign languages, Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity (which just founded this semester!) and Alpha Phi Omega Co-ed Community Service Fraternity. |
 | Ariel Abrahams wants to change the way he thinks of things. Ariel wants to think of the Torah as a relatable piece of history, not just the story of some strange nation wandering through a desert. He wants to put modern Jews in the shoes of biblical heroes. Ariel Abrahams is an NYU Freshman in the Studio Art program. He hopes to achieve his project goals through painting, mixed media and sculpture. |
 | Eli Kaplan-Wildmann is a theater designer who grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, and is now a Senior at the Tisch School of the Arts studying set design in the Technical Theater Production Track of the Drama Department. He has designed scenery and lighting for many plays and musicals both in Jerusalem and New York, as well as assisting on major Broadway, regional and industrial shows. Additionally, Eli teaches at NYU and at Rodeph Sholom Religious School, and was a drill sergeant in the Israeli Navy - all jobs that require large doses of theatricality.
Since Eli delights in the various non-traditional forms that theater can take, for this fellowship he will be developing the visual environment for a theater piece based on stories from the bible - creating models and drawings for the puppets, scenery and costumes. www.EliDoesTheater.com |
 | Anat Vovnoboy was born in Moscow Russia, lives in Israel and currently based and works in NYC. She had recently received her BA with honors from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her thesis film Gateway to Heaven have received the prize for best documentary at the Dusty film festival and will be presented at the Jewish Student Film Festival at NYU.
As two religious women, one Jewish and one Muslim, Mariyam and Anat are planning to create a series of photographs capturing the head covers Jewish and Muslim woman wear. The photographs capture woman from all walks of life at their daily activities. We hope to explore the way religion and tradition affect women's lives and present the similarities between the two religions that are so often are found in conflict. www.Anat.Vovnoboy.com |
 | Samuel Holleran is a student at the Cooper Union, where he focuses on printmaking and drawing at the School of Art. He is working on a comic with an accompanying series of woodcuts that will examine the role anxiety played in fin-de-siècle Jewish culture. The comic is an examination of both shifting identity and familiar stereotypes, including: the cosmopolitan/ intellectual, the Wandering Jew, and the conflict over Ostjuden. |
 | Max Orenstein is a senior in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, concentrating in photojournalism, Spanish, and Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Since having picked up a camera since the age of three, Max is a passionate photographer who has been shooting weddings for the past six years and interned for a variety of newspapers including Newsday, The Morning Call and The Jersey Journal. For the fellowship, he is creating a documentary photography project on homosexuality in Judaism. The focus of the project will document the life of a gay rabbi and her partner who recently had a child. |
 | Ramona Pringle is an interdisciplinary artist and media designer whose work explores the convergence of video, motion animation, performance, and technology in interactive digital media. Having worked as an actor, television host, video director and editor, the underlying factor in Ramona's work is a need to communicate and tell stories that move people, which has led her to NYU and the Interactive Telecommunications Program where she is currently pursuing a Masters Degree. She has been a collaborator with The PeakMedia Collective on projects including The Media Tree, a three story video installation at Casino Niagara, and Winter Sky, a 24,000 square foot immersive video installation in Toronto Canada that combines exhilarating digital video and motion graphics with cutting edge lighting and projection technology.
As part of the Bronfman Arts Fellowship, Ramona is producing EchoHatikvah, a video installation inspired by the melodic beauty of Israel's anthem, its profound meaning, and its global resonance, not only among the Jewish people, but also as a uniting undercurrent of hope for all people, crossing cultural boundaries and reflecting the oneness of the human condition. |
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Leia Weil began favoring dance as a mode of expression while growing up in
California. She attended summer programs with the San Francisco Ballet, the
Joffrey Ballet, Bolzano Dance Festival (Italy), and Tisch Dance (NYC) and
became a member of the Second Avenue Dance Company in 2007. Leia is
fortunate to be a Tisch Dance scholarship recipient and plans to graduate in
2008 with a BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts Dance Department and a BA
from the Department of Journalism. She then hopes to continue her
explorations in Israel. Leia's choreographic work, "A Constant Teshuva" mixes modern dance with ritual gesture and is based on the process of teshuva, return, in Judaism. Leia comes from a non-traditional Jewish background and now explores and engages in observant Judaism. This path has inspired her to express the struggle and pull of having secular origins while trying to internalize religious tradition. "A Constant Teshuva" explores this attempt to identify with one's Jewish heritage while integrated within a culture which often espouses a competing set of values and assumptions. By using video installations she plans on capturing different elements of the piece to be displayed in the Bronfman gallery setting. |
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Mariyam Astaneha was born in the US and raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
She attends New York University, where she majored in Psychology and minored
in Fine Arts. Mariyam has been photographing for the past four years throughout the US and Middle East, especially Iran. |