group show, california jewish open, opened on june 6, 2024 at the contemporary jewish museum, san francisco, CA.

grieving stones, 2022 - present — porcelain, made in community with the Jewish Community center of San francisco on holocaust remembrance day 5784 and with the zekelman holocaust center in detroit, mi in 2022.

Inspired by the Jewish tradition of placing stones on a gravesite, Ong’s Grieving Stones offer a personal and embodied way to hold, share, and release grief. Each stone was made by hand through collective workshops where participants were invited to perform the act of tightly gripping pieces of clay—a process that allowed them to share an impression of their hands with future participants in the artwork. This act also offered Ong a way to symbolically hold hands with her departed mother when visiting her mother’s gravesite. 

“The handprint in these stones contains the simultaneity of grief: a fist, an expression of anger; a held hand, an expression of love . . . To hold this stone in your hand is to hold hands with another . . . These stones were made with communities in connection to the Holocaust. As survivors of genocide, we say ‘Never Again,’ and yet we are witnessing an entire people being decimated, expelled, and starved, in our name. This work is an invitation to sit with the agony and horror of this grief. May this gesture of care for one another serve as an intimate reminder of the value and impact one person’s imprint can have over a lifetime.” —Meirav Ong 

Grieving Stones Instructions composed by the artist:

You are invited to pick up a stone. Find one that feels good in your hand. 

  1. Squeeze the stone. 

  2. Sit with your feelings that arise from the collective indifference that has led to the mass killing of Palestinians

  3. Squeeze the stone again. 

  4. Imagine holding hands with a child in Gaza. 

  5. Release love to this child. 

Place the stone on the growing pile of Grieving Stones or carry its weight home with you.