UVA Jewish Studies Welcomes 2026-27 Distinguished

UVA Jewish Studies is pleased to announce that award-winning artist Leslie Starobin is our inaugural Distinguished Artist-in-Residence for the 2026-27 school year.

A photographic artist and Framingham State University's Professor Emerita of Art, Starobin's photographs, photo-narratives, and still-life montages are inspired by people and places steeped in family history, enriched by cultural traditions, and central to world history and the environment. Her artwork is in the permanent collection of many American museums, including the Jewish Museum in New York, the Library of Congress, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards and grants for her work, including a 2023 Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts & Culture Community Grant Fund. To learn more about Leslie Starobin's work, you can visit her website.

While in residency at UVA in Spring 2027, Starobin hopes to further her research for an upcoming anthology on the historic symbolism of trees in Judaism juxtaposed with the "treescapes" she has photographed in Tel Aviv and the surrounding regions as part of her "Out on a Limb: A Human is a Tree of the Field" collection. This project seeks to protect endangered landscapes and trace the history of human migration by depicting close-up images of the organic contours and curves of both indigenous and non-native tree trunks across America, Israel, Spain, and England.

She also plans to lead an undergraduate workshop, entitled "Picturing Personal Pasts: Objects of Meaning and Memory," introducing students to literary and visual artists, along with historians and scholars, who are intrigued by objects that personify history and family legacies.

We are currently accepting applications for the next UVA Jewish Studies Distinguished Artist/Writer/Musician-in-Residence for the 2027-28 academic year. Apply here.