HAMSA X3: Post-Pandemic Amulets
Jewish Museum / New York, NY

This sculpture project was an intervention within The Sassoons exhibition at the Jewish Museum. It merges the traditional Hamsa—a protective hand-shaped symbol widely recognized in North Africa and the Middle East—with the public symbols of hands designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. For this project, structures resembling hand-sanitizer stands are dispersed within the museum. Placed and lit upon the structures are sculptural iterations of various instructional/ cautionary public symbols (of hands washing or touching). Within the context of the Sassoon collection, these sculptures seek to echo the tradition of the age-old, protective Hamsa and to highlight the evolution of its historical significance and cultural associations.