CREATIVE CURRENCY

CREATIVE CURRENCY

PEER TO PEER ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION PROJECT

15 December 2025
Twelve hours after the Bondi Chanukah attack

Recorded in real time, the conversations are direct, thoughtful and deeply personal.

Filming proceeded as planned on 15 December under exceptional circumstances.

The production team and intern students witnessed something both raw and composed — history and truth captured on camera.

Everyone left the studio that night did so changed - taking home deeper understanding and conversations that continue today.

In remerbrance of the 15 victims of the December 2025 Bondi Chanukah attack. May their memories be a blessing.

Photos: Belle Stewart

KOFMAN & KRONGOLD’S GOLD

On 15 December, a day of national tragedy, Adam Krongold and Lee Kofman meet for the first time - and share personal insight, collective growth, a powerful epiphany, and the ‘Silver Lining Theory’.

Yesterday in Sydney there was mass murder and people were killed. Jews were killed just for being Jewish on a day, on the first day of Chanukkah, which is a holiday celebrating Jews being able to be Jewish in their indigenous homeland, Israel.

So it's quite ironic, and maybe I still haven't found any silver lining in this at this point, with regard to that, because I'm still processing and still aligning, there has to be - there has to be. There will be, and there is - and that's the way I take it. I'm not imposing on anyone or anything, but it's for me. This is where I find resilience, in finding the thing, in anything, to take me to the next point and to move forward.

And being around so many creatives, I've met so many people that I wouldn't ordinarily have met. I get to engage with yourself for example.

Last year I found myself back in Israel, for the first time since October 7.  I do business there in the startup space, I would go every year, sometimes twice. And I remember towards the end of my trip waking up, sitting up, bolt upright, with an epiphany, and then having a panic attack.

And the epiphany was that for 1000s of years, the Jewish people are constantly on the run, constantly moving from one country to the other, being chased, being shot at, being killed, leaving everything behind, just carrying their words, their stories and their songs.

And with these words and stories and songs, we take our values, we take our history, we pass our values from one generation to the next, and these things we’re being taken from us now the words from our very mouths rewritten and thrown back at us like rocks.

And if we don't do something in a generation or two, a Jewish child will be born and immediately hate themselves because of a narrative change, an incorrect narrative change.

“And I realise. What can I do? I can push back as much as I can, so Jewish creatives can be free to create whatever they want. “

- Adam Krongold

Adam Krongold is a Melbourne-based angel investor and philanthropist. Co-President of the Jewish Museum of Australia and Director of COJA

KOFMAN & KRONGOLD’S GOLD

Attention then shifts to Kofman interviewed by Krongold. Lee shares childhood illness, family dynamics and her version of the silver lining of being Jewish post October 7.

Speaking of silver linings. I'm at the moment deep at work on a story that I wanted to tell all my life, but only since October 7 I found the framework, the structure, how to tell it, which is the story of growing up. You asked me before about where I'm from, etc, a story of growing up with parents who were dissidents in the Soviet Union and religious Jewish dissidents.

So I'm not religious at all, but I come from very religious family, like ultra orthodox family, and so I never knew, and I always rebelled against my parents, and I left religious school when I was 14.

I always made sure to say - in everything I do in my life, in my work, in my private life - ‘I am not like my parents’.

And then October 7 came, and as you know, part of a WhatsApp group I organised for Jewish creatives. We were doxxed, that story you know, I was abused online. And some writing organisations wouldn't employ me.

They used to employ me for more than 15 years regularly, because I'm the terrible, bad Jew who organises other Jews, bring them as a cabal together anyway. But one day, I was thinking, I was actually in Goldstone Gallery, which is the gallery for canceled artists, run by the amazing, you know Nina Sanadze, who we both love, the sculptor and the artist. And I was there with Nina talking about these galleries for dissidents, and I was thinking ‘Oh, my God, I am like my parents. Fuck!’

Sorry I don't know if I'm allowed to swear. But my parents, because they were dissidents, you know. And at the moment, almost every Jewish artist who does not deny publicly indigen- I can never pronounce the word, can you? Yes, indigeneity almost every Jewish artist who does not publicly deny their indigeneity is suddenly treated as a dissident.

So that gave me the structure to write this book. So it's inspired me. And I write now about the parallels between my parents experience and my experiences.

I think we are in a Jewish renaissance of art, and in a funny way, because on one hand, we're really not platformed, and we keep being canceled. But what's happening with us at the moment is what happened in the Soviet Union of my childhood, when the Soviet censorship was so strong and only very kind of state approved books were published, but really extraordinary books and art were created, especially books as some is that which is self publishing, underground, illegal.

And I think that's we are at the moment, at because we're so repressed by our arts institutions. I think we are producing better, stronger, bolder.

I mean, that's how Ruptured came about. Australian Jewish women talking about how their lives changed after October 7.

So I think actually, in some ways, the kind of institutional repression we are experiencing has been a boost to our creativity, isn't it? So keep creating.

Dr Lee Kofman is a Russian-born Israeli-Australian author of six books and editor of three anthologies. She is a writing teacher and mentor based in Melbourne.

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Documentary

Podcast & Filmed Archival Assets

Take a deep dive into The Creative Minds of Melbourne’s most intriguing storytellers.

Creative Currency is a documentary project and cultural archive that captures the heart and soul of creative culture in Melbourne.

Filmed interviews with influential creatives who have shaped Melbourne’s cultural landscape.

Behind-the-scenes documentation of creative processes and collaborative practices.

A digital cultural archive that will be made publicly accessible for educational and historical purposes.

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Proudly co-created with filmmaker Tony Rogers, we offer powerful training experiences - that not only develop the necessary skills for industry - but genuinely enhance creative confidence by working directly with our dedicated professional network.

Wisdom Worth Sharing with depth, warmth and generosity of spirit.

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Allow Melbourne atelier Gwendolynne Burkin and internationally regarded Christopher Tovo to take you on a journey through the 90’s in a charged first encounter with each other.

Exchanging graceful, intoxicating tales, rich with family history, the currency of their craft - and the death of social media.

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