Artist Talk: Art as Ritual, Ritual as Resistance

For over a decade, Day Schildkret has invited people to slow down, connect, and mark life’s endless transitions through Morning Altars, a practice that fuses nature, art, and ritual to make meaning in an impermanent world. But ritual is not just about beauty and reflection – it is also an ancient form of Jewish resistance.

In conversation with Elissa Strauss, Artistic Director and Author, Schildkret explores how, for millennia, Jews have turned to ritual, art and nature to defy erasure, to sanctify life in the face of destruction, and to stitch meaning into the ruptures of history. In a time when Jewish grief, fear, and resilience have been laid bare post-October 7th, The Broken Seder steps into this lineage of creative resistance. This installation reinvents the Seder plate as a meditation on brokenness and wholeness, inviting us to confront what has been shattered – and to reclaim our agency in piecing something new together.

Through bold symbolism, soundscapes and immersive storytelling, The Broken Seder asks: How do we carry tradition forward when the ground beneath us has shifted? How do we reimagine sacred rituals to meet the urgency of now? And how can art itself be a form of Jewish resilience?

About the Interviewer
Elissa Strauss is a journalist, essayist, and the author of When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Glamour, ELLE, and Slate, where she covered the culture and politics of parenthood. For the past fifteen years, she has co-directed LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture, a global arts incubation fellowship, and is currently the artistic director of the LABA hub in the Bay Area. Learn more about her work here.