2009
no. 1
no. 2
no. 3
no. 4
no. 5
american samplers, series 3 (the chicken chronicles nos. 1-5)
2009
Canson paper, archival ink
Each drawing 22"Wx30"H
american samplers, series 3 (the chicken chronicles 1-14) is a suite of 14 drawings that both reflects the challenges faced by the first Jewish community, refugees from Recife, Brazil, when they arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam (1654) and still faced by immigrants today.
The kitchen and food preparation were among the women's responsibilities. Dessel's chickens and lobsters speak to us all.
Lobsters, plentiful and inexpensive in 17th century Nieuw Amsterdam/New York, were not Kosher. With humor, the drawings highlight fears & cultural differences, eventual intermingling, assimilation, & intermarriage, xenophobia, and treatment of immigrants that have marked the maturing of immigrant communities in the U.S.A. for the past 350+ years.
Photographs by Robert Puglisi.
