Illumanut

An exegetic journey through the Tanakh, interacting with the text through visual arts, writing, drama and music.

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WANTED

say what you think

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One thing that really struck me in the beginning of Megilat Esther was the very sexist actions. The way Ahashverosh treated Vashti, did not seem okay to me. To make matters worse when he tried to find a new wife he took all the beautiful girls and treated them like objects. That is what my Piece “Wanted” is about. “Wanted” is Ahashverosh’s wanted poster for the beautiful women. To make it appeal to us of the modern age I took phrases, body parts, and women from modern day magazines. The top picture is made up of a collage of body parts of women and covered with four faceless girls whose faces were recreated with makeup. This represents the fact that all Ahashverosh cared about was how the women looked and not what was on the inside. The next part is the phrase I put, “Wanted, Perfect Woman”, were I crossed out the a in woman and changed it into an e, showing that Ahashverosh did not just want one girl but wanted all the pretty women in the kingdom. The third part of the project is the phrases I cut out from magazines showing what a perfect woman would be like. These include the simplest words such as “Beautiful”, “Chic”, and “Sexy”, to the craziest phrases like “Sparkling teeth”, “Best of Beauty”, and even “Go nude”. This part not only showed the crazy things Ahashverosh wants in a woman but also show how we want women to be like today. My final application to this project was makeup. Using eye shadow, nail polish, eye liner, and lipstick, I covered the poster using things that we use today and they used then to make us (women) look “perfect”.

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Vashti

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Esther and Mordechai

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Preparing the "Wanted" collage

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Vashti's Song

This is the text of a song I wrote from Vashti's point of view:

Tonight there'll be no more music,

tonight there'll be no more laughter,

tonight there'll be no more me

sitting on your knee

pretending to be.

In a haze of red and gold,

the wine is poured, more drinks are served,

you're sitting on a cloud,

music blaring loud,

needing to please the crowd.

Fueled by their energy,

weak with attention, weak with power,

but I'll stand tall,

a woman first of all,

my dignity will never fall.

So, tonight there'll be no more music,

tonight there'll be no more laughter,

tonight there'll be no more me,

sitting on your knee,

pretending to be.

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Imagining Esther

Look at how these different artist imagine Esther. What elements are they emphasizing in their depictions?

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Welcome to Illumanut: Megillat Esther

Welcome to the Illumanut website, a forum for sharing our works in process, interacting with each other’s interpretation, and creating a multidisciplinary companion to this incredible Megillah.

Make it yours! 

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Illumanut

An exegetic journey through the Tanakh, interacting with the text through visual arts, writing, drama and music.