MELISSA SHIFf (1967-2025)
A retrospective exhibition will be announced.
Melissa Shiff (1967-2025) was a contemporary Toronto-based artist known for her innovative and interdisciplinary work that explores themes related to Jewish identity, culture, and history. Her art spans various media, including video sculpture, kinetic sculpture, multi-media installations, performance art, augmented reality and virtual reality. Shiff’s work frequently engages with social and political issues, challenging conventional narratives and representations within the context of Jewish heritage.
Shiff's work has been reviewed in Afterimage, The Prague Post, C Magazine, Nashim, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, NOW Magazine, The Jewish Quarterly, The Boston Globe, Tikkun Magazine, The New York Times. The Forward, The Canadian Jewish News, and The Walrus.
Upon graduating from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University, Shiff’s work focused on the link between religious ritual and performance art. Her first public art piece, Times Square Seder, which featured The Matzo Ball Soup Kitchen, activated the Passover ritual by feeding hungry people on the streets of New York. Her video sculpture Elijah Chair, which was created as part of this Passover project, was later acquired by The Jewish Museum of New York which launched Shiff’s career.
​
In 2006, Shiff began working with the archives of museums and she was given an honour of a lifetime to make the Centennial piece for one of the most important Jewish Museums in Europe: The Jewish Museum in Prague.Her highly acclaimed work ARK stood on the last remaining street of the former Jewish Ghetto and was seen by the entire city. It was reviewed glowingly in every major newspaper in Prague and it was also reviewed in Curator: the Museum Journal by Bruce Jenkins, Dean of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who compared it to the work of Chantal Akerman, Bill Viola and Mary Lucier.Shiff has exhibited her work internationally at such institutions as The Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco, The Jewish Museum in Prague, The Israeli Center for Digital Art and The Jewish Museum New York. Shiff has given countless artist talks about her work around the globe including The Tasmania Art School and The Victoria College of Art in Melbourne. She has been invited to give three keynote lectures on her work: she was honoured as the Roberts Lecturer in Jewish Art at Fairfield University in 2009; Shiff was also the Keynote speaker for the Seminar in Jewish Art at the University of Madison Wisconsin and gave the Ruth Gay Endowed Lecture at The Center for Jewish History in 2017 on her current project Imaginary Jewish Homelands.
In 2015, Shiff was appointed to The Sensorium Centre for Digital Research and Technology at York University in recognition of her virtual reality project Imaginary Jewish Homelands, for which she won a prestigious Insight Grant from the Government of Canada. The appointment and project are ongoing. In 2011, Shiff was appointed for a three-year term as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto in recognition of her body of work and her research on Mapping Ararat: An Imaginary Jewish Homelands Project, for which she served as the primary investigator. This historical and artistic project was awarded an Insight Development grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Melissa Shiff is a contemporary Toronto based artist known for her innovative and interdisciplinary work that often explores themes related to Jewish identity, culture, and history. Her art spans various media, including video sculpture, kinetic sculpture, multi-media installations, performance art, augmented reality and virtual reality. Shiff’s work, frequently engages with social and political issues, challenging conventional narratives and representations within the context of Jewish heritage.
​
.
Shiff's work has been reviewed in Afterimage, The Prague Post, C Magazine, Nashim, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, NOW Magazine, The Jewish Quarterly, The Boston Globe, Tikkun Magazine, The New York Times. The Forward, The Canadian Jewish News, and The Walrus.
Upon graduating from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University, Shiff’s work focused on the link between religious ritual and performance art. Her first public art piece Times Square Seder: Featuring The Mazo Ball Soup Kitchen. activated the Passover ritual by feeding hungry people on the streets of New York. Her video sculpture, Elijah Chair which was created as part of this Passover project was later acquired by The Jewish Museum New York Museum which launched Shiff’s career.
Upon graduating from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University, Shiff’s work focused on the link between religious ritual and performance art. Her first public art piece Times Square Seder: Featuring The Mazo Ball Soup Kitchen. activated the Passover ritual by feeding hungry people on the streets of New York. Her video sculpture, Elijah Chair which was created as part of this Passover project was later acquired by The Jewish Museum New York Museum which launched Shiff’s career.