B.A. VAN SISE

Invited to Life is a series of portraits and short stories created in four years traveling across the United States to document the inspirational but complex lives of more than 150 American Holocaust survivors. Highlighting the diversity of these subjects and their unique experiences, the work examines the many ways large and small the world has been remapped by the hopeful roads survivors have made in overcoming their trauma to create a new and better future in their pivot to American life.     

To be released in January 2023 in book form as Invited to Life: After the Holocaust (with contributed essays by Dr. Mayim Bialik, Neil Gaiman, and Sabrina Orah Mark,) and featured in an expansive solo exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in its first-ever public art installation from 2018-2021, the Smithsonian affiliate Center for Jewish History in 2022, and the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center in 2023.

The project is the bronze medal winner for portraiture at the 2021 Prix de la Photographie Paris and a finalist at the Tokyo International Photo Awards.

With thanks to the Holocaust Museum and Tolerance Center, the Museum of Tolerance/Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Witness Project, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Goldie & David Blanksteen Foundation, GLAAD, the Sherwin-Miller Museum of Jewish Art, and the Florida Holocaust Museum for their assistance as we worked with Holocaust survivors across the country.

Previously featured in the New York Times, The Forward, Times of Israel, Forbes, the Jewish Journal,  NY1 News, the Straits Times of Singapore, the World Jewish Congress, and Washington Post.