Linda Jean Fisher

I have provided a description of the “volume projects” named “Six Million” and “576” on this page.  To learn more about these pieces, and how they are connected, download the PDF file named “Six Million and 576, The Support Document” here. 
           

“Six Million” is an interdisciplinary work memorializing the Jewish people exterminated during The Holocaust.  Its foundation is my commemorating each person with a black ink impression from my right forefinger.  The focus is on process, shaped by the life experiences of all who witness its evolution.  Upon completion in 2030, “Six Million” will include 50,000 letter size sheets of paper.  Each one contains 120 jet-black fingerprints arranged on a grid measuring 8.75” x 7.5”.  In addition, at the end of each seven-day work period, I number and archive the pages, scan my finger, and write a piece of experimental fiction that connects the fingerprints, statistics, and prose with human lives and experiences.  Some of these writings are historical fiction, while others address less than perfect human behavior or grapple with economic issues.  Because of such content, they can be upsetting and sorrowful, spiritual and heartening, or cynical and teetering on the border of absolute hilarity.  They serve as a release from the intensity I sometimes feel while engaging in the fingerprinting process.  But, even more importantly, the variations and surprises that define these works are a fitting counterpoint to the repetitive nature of the fingerprints.

“Six Million” explores the universal themes of family, segre­gation, isolation, survival and the hope of the unconquerable human spirit one fingerprint after the other.  It wraps around you and raises your awareness because you feel it more than you see it.  One fingerprint brings back one person and one multi-dimensional experience.  I drill history into my psyche in the following ways:  repeatedly listening to audio books, getting absorbed by documentary films, and talking with eyewitnesses.  I become so engrossed that I live what I am studying and, as a result, the current merges with the historical.  “Six Million” surrounds us in much the same way.  The art-making process and my commitment to “Six Million”, as well as its individual elements including works on paper, digital images, experimental forms of literature, and witnesses, are presented with the public as an interactive installation (dimensions variable).  Therefore, the Holocaust is taken out of its historical context and lived as a current event. 

“576” is a work in progress. The completed piece will add up to 576 11” x 8.5” paintings on paper.  Each sheet features a series of circular bands centered within a square. The sum of the rings divides equally into the number 24. This configuration provides a means to explore the 24 colors in Wilhelm Ostwald’s color system as well as his principles of color organization and color harmony.  I should add that the number 24 was not randomly chosen.  Before World War II Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer had associations who were communists.  All of them had been thoroughly examined by the Army when it cleared him in 1943 and by the Atomic Energy Commission when it cleared him in 1947.  In December 1953, they became the basis of new charges and the Atomic Energy Commission formally indicted him with disloyalty and suspended his security clearance.  He decided to answer the charges against him and asked for a hearing to clear his name.  But instead of the objective inquiry called for by the Atomic Energy Commission’s rules, he was subjected to an unfair trial that extended over a 24-day period.
I have complete faith in Dr. Oppenheimer’s loyalty to the United States of America.  He loved this country and would never have done anything to jeopardize it.  I felt it was my duty to affirm the very thing for which he was wrongly prosecuted (i.e. his loyalty). To carry out this endeavor, I made the number of hours that Dr. Oppenheimer endured during his security hearing the basis for a work of art.  (24 days x 24 hours = 576 hours).