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Beba Epstein: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Girl | YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Connecting, Disrupting, Engaging
Production / Indie/Non-ProfitTeam
CURATORIAL CONCEPTS, CREATIVE DIRECTION & TEXTS
Karolina Ziulkoski, Chief Curator, YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum
RESEARCH & DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
Olivia Reid, Research and Project Specialist, YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum
MAIN SCHOLAR REVIEWER
Dr. Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History, Trinity College
SCHOLAR REVIEW
Dr. Eva Hoffman
Dr. Antony Polonsky, Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University and Chief Historian at POLIN Museum
Dr. David Engel, New York University
Dr. Eddy Portnoy, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
RESEARCH AND SCHOLAR ADVISOR
Roberta Newman
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Kiss Me I’m Polish LLC
EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT
Car of Tomorrow
EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT
Ila Gross
3D MODELS
Melon | Carolina Manenti Saraiva, Cleto Pádua, Diego Biachi de Castria and Luciana Manenti Saraiva
COMICS
Milo Krimstein
TEXT REVIEW
Joe Levit
AUDIO ENGINEER
Rodrigo Piccoli
FAMILY ANIMATIONS VOICEOVER
Ariella Carmen Mañago Alexander
BOOK READINGS VIDEOS | ACTRESS
Yelena Shmulenson
BOOK READINGS VIDEOS | VIDEO SHOOTING AND EDITING
Point of Order Productions
BOOK READINGS VIDEOS | MAKEUP
Ori Gilady
YIVO INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH
Jonathan Brent, Executive Director & CEO Shelly Freeman, Chief of Staff Robert Wagman, Chief Financial Officer Melissa Cohen, Chief Development Officer
Overview
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has been preserving and studying the history and culture of East European Jewry for over 95 years. The YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum is a free resource that utilizes the stories of everyday people as vehicles to tell the larger history of Jews in Eastern Europe and shares treasures from the YIVO collections.
The central issue guiding the project development was understanding what defines an online museum. Often, the digital presence of museums is an extension of a physical institution. But when a museum exists only online, do the same principles apply?
This led to rethinking the concept of an online museum. How can the behavior of users in digital environments be leveraged to make digital exhibitions more engaging? What can be done effectively online? From the answers to these questions emerged the framework of the online museum. Taking advantage of a medium that is ideal for storytelling and interactive experiences, the exhibitions are based on the life of an individual told through a combination of archival objects, written text, animations, videos, interactive 3D environments, games, and more – a series of experiences that visitors can undergo as a whole or individually. Personal stories are the thread that connects different topics. The inaugural exhibition, Beba Epstein: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Girl, presents the life of a girl who grew up in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), survived the Holocaust, and later immigrated to the United States.
