Creative Ways Projects
Select Community Arts Collaborations
Exhibiting Artist, BIONEERS 2025 Conference
Berkeley, CA, March 2025
https://bioneers.org/about/purpose/
Berkeley, CA, March 2025
https://bioneers.org/about/purpose/
Mask-Making & Wonder Box Workshops
Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles January and April 2025
Shari and Benny led a series of mixed-media art workshops with educators to big ideas,
Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles January and April 2025
Shari and Benny led a series of mixed-media art workshops with educators to big ideas,
OTHERLAND, Klezkanada Summer Retreat
Montreal, August 2022
A collaboration between Benny Ferdman, Shari Davis, and Michael Alpert. In this intergenerational, interdisciplinary and collaborative project, the wild spaces within us met the wild spaces around us. Art installations and music invited surprise and wonder along a hidden trail at KlezKanada’s Summer Retreat. Carrying the languages, symbols and textures of our cultures, together we stepped into the wild, where nature and culture reconnect. Rooted in diverse Motherlands, we found common ground on this shared "Otherland".
A Library of Trees, A Landscape of Words: An Arts Workshop to Co-Create the Visual World of Otherland
Benny Ferdman and Freed Fellow Ava Berkson worked with Klezkanada participants to co-create the visual art elements of the Otherland project: Inspired by Yiddish poetry and text as well as personal stories, participants used both traditional art materials, and found objects to create collaborative works of art culminating in site-specific, interactive installations along the trail.
Montreal, August 2022
A collaboration between Benny Ferdman, Shari Davis, and Michael Alpert. In this intergenerational, interdisciplinary and collaborative project, the wild spaces within us met the wild spaces around us. Art installations and music invited surprise and wonder along a hidden trail at KlezKanada’s Summer Retreat. Carrying the languages, symbols and textures of our cultures, together we stepped into the wild, where nature and culture reconnect. Rooted in diverse Motherlands, we found common ground on this shared "Otherland".
A Library of Trees, A Landscape of Words: An Arts Workshop to Co-Create the Visual World of Otherland
Benny Ferdman and Freed Fellow Ava Berkson worked with Klezkanada participants to co-create the visual art elements of the Otherland project: Inspired by Yiddish poetry and text as well as personal stories, participants used both traditional art materials, and found objects to create collaborative works of art culminating in site-specific, interactive installations along the trail.
A Polish song about a river, sung on the bridge at Otherland. Led by Michael Alpert
Harvest Festival, Skirball Cultural Center
Los Angeles, October 2019
Creative Ways provided an array of welcoming programs for Skirball's annual festival celebrating the Fall harvest and the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Benny designed and built a giant Samovar tea urn that dispensed 4 custom blends of tea and generated conversation and community. Families created herbal dream pillows painted with hand-made plant and vegetable dyes, and made metal amulets and handmade stamps to decorate the Sukkah. Partnering with Jacob Ferdman and Isis Walls from Five Finger Farms, families created custom herbal tea blends and participated in The DIY Herbal Kitchen- a vibrant workshop providing instruction and inspiration in how to create fermented and herb infused foods.
WondeRing at the Ashkenaz Festival
12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival, North America’s largest celebration of global Jewish music and culture
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, August 2018
Davis & Ferdman, together with curator and producer Evelyn Tauben, designed a site-wide, interactive visual arts experience, transforming the Harbourfront Centre into a wondrous landscape of giant mermaids, mystical unicorns, spinning rabbits and an elephant with a castle on its back. Inspired by Ferdman’s decades-long exploration of the rich visual culture that was once central to Eastern European Jewish communities, this project built upon the artist’s visual library of surprising and fantastical creatures brought to life from medieval Jewish manuscripts, rare photos of lost, painted wooden synagogues and other ritual objects.
WondeRing included:
12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival, North America’s largest celebration of global Jewish music and culture
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, August 2018
Davis & Ferdman, together with curator and producer Evelyn Tauben, designed a site-wide, interactive visual arts experience, transforming the Harbourfront Centre into a wondrous landscape of giant mermaids, mystical unicorns, spinning rabbits and an elephant with a castle on its back. Inspired by Ferdman’s decades-long exploration of the rich visual culture that was once central to Eastern European Jewish communities, this project built upon the artist’s visual library of surprising and fantastical creatures brought to life from medieval Jewish manuscripts, rare photos of lost, painted wooden synagogues and other ritual objects.
WondeRing included:
- Giant sculptural puppets of fantastical creatures created for the parade by Benny Ferdman, Jacob Ferdman, Isis Walls, and a team of volunteers.
- Art workshops for all ages - metal amulets, spinning whirligigs, and painted flags celebrating the diverse languages of Toronto
- The Room in the Elephant - solo exhibition & gallery talk by Benny Ferdman in the Marilyn Brewer Gallery. Curated by Evelyn Tauben.
- An intensive, four day studio course at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) by Ferdman, introduced students to the rich world of Eastern European Jewish folk art traditions and gave students an opportunity to create artwork for the large puppets leading the Ashkenaz parade.
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PASSAGEWAYS: Growing Up in the World
Traveling Interactive Exhibition in retrofitted 40 foot x 8 foot shipping container transformed into a "Gallery on Wheels."
Curated, designed and fabricated by Benny Ferdman and Shari Davis. Passageways explored birth, adolescence and adulthood in cultures across the globe through interactive exhibits and artwork by international artists exploring "rites of passage." Sponsored by "Omanut La'Am--Art for the People--Passageways travelled for three years in Israel to outlying Jewish and and Palestinian communities which have minimal access to the arts.
Funded by a grant from the Alan B. Slifka Foundation
Traveling Interactive Exhibition in retrofitted 40 foot x 8 foot shipping container transformed into a "Gallery on Wheels."
Curated, designed and fabricated by Benny Ferdman and Shari Davis. Passageways explored birth, adolescence and adulthood in cultures across the globe through interactive exhibits and artwork by international artists exploring "rites of passage." Sponsored by "Omanut La'Am--Art for the People--Passageways travelled for three years in Israel to outlying Jewish and and Palestinian communities which have minimal access to the arts.
Funded by a grant from the Alan B. Slifka Foundation
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With Stone Shoes--An Oral History Performance Project
Creative Ways developed and directed this performance project in which new Ethiopian immigrants to Israel told the story of their journey through theater, music and dance. Sponsored by the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jews, it was performed in Jerusalem over multiple weeks in 1994. The performers, none whom acted before, worked with Davis and Ferdman to create a script based on their personal stories. The title is based on the story told by one of the performers: before leaving their village for the long, dangerous trek to Israel via Sudan, her grandfather told her she must "put on stone shoes" to protect her for the difficult journey to Jerusalem.
Creative Ways developed and directed this performance project in which new Ethiopian immigrants to Israel told the story of their journey through theater, music and dance. Sponsored by the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jews, it was performed in Jerusalem over multiple weeks in 1994. The performers, none whom acted before, worked with Davis and Ferdman to create a script based on their personal stories. The title is based on the story told by one of the performers: before leaving their village for the long, dangerous trek to Israel via Sudan, her grandfather told her she must "put on stone shoes" to protect her for the difficult journey to Jerusalem.
Mask Making Workshop
New Delhi, India--Dil Se School for Homeless Youth
New Delhi, India--Dil Se School for Homeless Youth
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Ein Duke
One of two art workshops we informally led with youth from the Arab village of Ein Duke, outside the town of Jericho. The original project which launched Creative Ways. in 1984. 
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Stage Sets -- Commissioned for "Global Soul" event at L.A. County Museum of Art + 80th birthday concert for actor, folk singer, activist Theo Bikel, Wadsworth Theater, Los Angeles. Produced by Craig & Co.
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Tsim-Tsum -- Milken Community High School, Los Angeles
Large outdoor sculpture (13 feet in diameter) created during an art residency. This "leviathan" is based on a giant mythical circular fish written about in Jewish folklore. This project explored ideas about "rites of passage" and was in partial collaboration with students who designed the metal "birth amulets" affixed to the scales.
Large outdoor sculpture (13 feet in diameter) created during an art residency. This "leviathan" is based on a giant mythical circular fish written about in Jewish folklore. This project explored ideas about "rites of passage" and was in partial collaboration with students who designed the metal "birth amulets" affixed to the scales.
Face to Face: Portraits in Transit
Staten Island Ferry Terminal, NYC, 1986
Sculpted portraits of ferry riders on the Staten Island Ferry, New York. These 6 ft. tall sculpted faces were accompanied by oral history narratives, collected during conversations while riding the ferry. Funded by a grant from the Staten Island Arts Council.
Staten Island Ferry Terminal, NYC, 1986
Sculpted portraits of ferry riders on the Staten Island Ferry, New York. These 6 ft. tall sculpted faces were accompanied by oral history narratives, collected during conversations while riding the ferry. Funded by a grant from the Staten Island Arts Council.
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