Excerpt from "Activating Exodus: The Art of Melissa Shiff" by Heather Diack, Professor of Art History at Toronto Metropolitan University. 

"This installation recounts the story of Exodus and recalls the Haggadah's mandate to put one's self in the po­sition of the oppressed, to escape narrow mindedness, and to crush oppression.This remembering is not done in the form of passive contemplation, but rather in active participation. The visitor becomes an Israel­ite escaping Egypt and the pharaohs-moving between these overwhelming walls of water from slavery to liberation, as Moses parts the Red Sea. This story be­comes metaphorical rather than funda­mentalist; it serves as a call to action, a call to abolish the plagues through social action. Within our contemporary con­text, today's pharaohs can be read as the individuals and institutions that oppress people and the environment in the inter­est of globalization and personal gain." 

​​​Read Professor Diack's full article