Temple Fragments

Temple Fragments features 54 oil paintings of every synagogue in Melbourne arranged together as a moving, site-specific installation. These small works form a temple-like structure, uniting the city’s diverse Jewish sites.

Each 9x12" painting, created en plein air in 2025–2026, captures Melbourne synagogues as they merge with the surrounding streetscapes. Superimposed on each synagogue are semi-transparent impressions of the Beit Hamikdash, the Second Temple in Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained, when the Second Temple was destroyed, Jewish people carried a “mikdash me’at” – a small spiritual fragment – into the diaspora. These fragments became synagogues.

Razbash explores the intersection of the real and the imagined, inviting viewers to find holiness in the everyday, pride in identity, and strength in truth.

The modest size of paintings and the skeletal armature supporting them highlight the fragility of diaspora communities over 2,000 years, and the precarious safety of Jewish life today. Together, they form a hopeful prototype: a proud, united, and resilient vision of what could be and serve as a speculative blueprint for a "Great Synagogue of Melbourne".