Skirball Cultural Center

Everyone is welcome at the Skirball Cultural Center, yet every encounter is unique, inflected by culture, age, and origin. This was the theme of a smile, they said, a site-specific mural created by Berlin-based artists Antje Schiffers and Thomas Sprenger as part of their Let Me Show You Around project.

For the project, Schiffers and Sprenger were in residence at the Skirball for two weeks. During their stay, they interviewed members of the Skirball community about ideas of welcome. In their discussions with the artists, staff, docents, and volunteers shared a diverse array of images ranging from penguins to patio chairs to challah bread. Some participants spoke of paradisiacal landscapes, others referred to American customs as well as rituals rooted in Jewish tradition. Out of these plural expressions the artists developed the piece a smile, they said, a blend of wall art, paintings on wood, and text.

The result was a fascinating composite of more than eighty distinct voices unified into one.