Jewish-American Curator and Historian Aaron Levi Garvey on Documentation, Preservation and Storytelling

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Show notes:

1:00 Aaron Levi Garvey’s background 

2:30 art as a tool to create conversation

5:00 art to aid conversations on difficult topics

5:30 Vietnam Memorial in D.C.

6:30 The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL

7:15 Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany

8:30 ALG’s curatorial work about memory, loss of memory and internal revisions of personal history

10:00 “You Should Have Been There” exhibition’s origin

13:00 artists included in “You Should Have Been There”

15:15 ALG’s documentation project “Histories in Hand” with Holocaust survivors about survival and object memory 

23:30 increased outlets to spread antisemitism and a rise in denial of antisemitism and Holocaust denial

32:00 the importance of documentation 

35:00 the need for allies to speak out as a way to shift culture

38:00 defining justice as a moving target – food sustainability, safety, freedom of thought

42:00 ALG’s hope that his work will inspire reflection 

43:30 ALG’s efforts to bring his Jewish heritage forward through his work  

47:00 ALG’s inquiry about the documentation of the podcast 

50:00 how storytelling changes based on the lived experience of the teller

52:00 How the sacred moments of our lives shift our trajectories

55:00 ALG’s family background that he carries with him

57:30 a potential exhibition about the craft of watchmaking

59:50 objects for the “Histories in Hand” project

1:03:00 ripple effect of and stories shared in the “Histories in Hand” project

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Music by Toulme.

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© Stephanie Drawdy [2026]