One-day-only solo exhibition
Goldstone Gallery
Sunday April 6 2025
10 AM – 5 PM

Election Day: No Hate, is a one-day exhibition featuring photographs, sculptures, and a video work created at the fire-ravaged Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, incorporating cardboard voting booths and salvaged remnants from the destruction.

Nina reimagines the familiar shape of the cardboard voting booth as a sculptural symbol of democracy. By placing this form within the fire-bombed Adass Synagogue, she creates a powerful and haunting image that confronts the reality of antisemitism in Australia. This work underscores the vital importance—and personal responsibility—of casting one’s vote against hatred.

Nina’s intention is to imprint this image in the viewer’s mind, so that when they stand at a real voting booth, they recall her work and the weight of the choices we all make in shaping our society.

Another powerful sculptural work in the exhibition is a towering, charred doorway—hauntingly beautiful in its texture and presence. This is not a replica, but the original door salvaged from the firebombed Adass Synagogue, now installed in the gallery as raw, visceral evidence of the attack. It allows viewers to experience and witness the reality of this act of hatred firsthand.

At the centre of the exhibition is a meticulously crafted Torah scroll—though not written on parchment, it is instead composed entirely of articles from The Australian newspaper, documenting the alarming rise of antisemitism in Australia since October 7, 2023. This work serves both as a chronicle and a warning, confronting the chilling reverberations of history in the present day.

Over the course of 18 months, the artist painstakingly collected and assembled these articles into a continuous scroll that unrolls like a contemporary Torah—a sacred record not of ancient law, but of current events witnessed through the daily press. The exclusive use of The Australian was a deliberate choice: the artist believes it has offered the most accurate and empathetic coverage of the crisis, resonating deeply with the Jewish community.

Simultaneously, the work functions as a critique of media bias, drawing attention to the failure of many other outlets to reflect the gravity of the situation—or worse, their inclination to vilify the Jewish community in their narratives.

Cardboard voting booths are also poignantly used throughout the exhibition to activate the space and invite personal engagement. Arranged in a line, as if ready for an election, each booth is equipped with pencils, charcoal sticks, and blank white cards. Visitors are encouraged to respond to a set of prompts: to write something, to remain silent, or to do nothing—what is your vote?

Whether left blank or marked with words, each card is added to a growing wall of responses, gradually forming a collective tapestry of reflection, grief, and solidarity—evocative of a contemporary Wailing Wall.

Sanadze’s ongoing Election series has previously explored democracy and crisis through sculpture and installation—addressing bushfires (202) and floods (2024) using cardboard election booths as haunting sculptural forms.

Now, with the 2025 Federal election approaching, her focus shifts to the urgent reality of rising antisemitism in Australia—a crisis she has personally endured.

The firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue has become a chilling symbol of this growing hatred. In response, Sanadze bears witness through her art, refusing silence.

This marks her first solo exhibition since her 2024 survey show at the National Gallery of Victoria—a moment overshadowed by her own cancellation within the art world. Yet, undeterred, she reclaims space within Melbourne’s contemporary art scene, standing firm against attempts to erase her voice.

Visually stunning, poetic, and deeply resonant, Election Day: No Hate transforms trauma into testimony, reflection, and ultimately, hope. Elections signify change, renewal, and the chance to do things differently. Through this exhibition, Sanadze challenges us to face the present moment and imagine a future beyond hate.

In the spirit of resilience and communal solidarity, the event also embraces humour and connection, featuring a democracy sausage sizzle, ceramic and scorched sausage sculptures, and a live guitar improvisation by Mestaneh Nasarian.

Sanadze worked closely with Adass Synagogue management, who offered their full support. Remnants from the fire will feature in this exhibition and in a forthcoming large-scale outdoor installation for the Jewish Museum of Australia’s Chutzpah exhibition, opening May 2025.

Photography by Emmanuel Santos.