Undertow is a Maitland Regional Art Gallery touring exhibition by artist Hanna Kay, in partnership with the NSW Migration Heritage Centre.
Phillip Adams AO, broadcaster, writer and film-maker is a friend of Hanna and opened the exhibition at Maitland on 30 May 2010.
The exhibition tells the story of displacement and migration in regional NSW during colonial times – in particular the history and experiences of local Jewish migrants who settled in Maitland during the 19th century. It draws inspiration from the local Jewish cemetery – one of only two ‘stand alone’ Jewish cemeteries in regional NSW.
Kay was born in Israel and travelled and lived in Europe and America before settling in the Upper Hunter. Academic and historian, Dr Janis Wilton OAM, provided research into the stories of the people buried at the cemetery and the stories of the place itself; the people buried there, the communities from which they came, the lives they led and their place in Maitland’s history.
Undertow toured the regional art galleries at Tamworth, Broken Hill, Maitland, Moree, Orange; Stanthorpe and Dalby (Queensland) and the Jewish Museum of Australia (Melbourne).
