California-born artist Barbara Benish has divided her time between the U.S. and the Czech Republic since the 1980's, settling in Central Europe in 2003 as a Fulbright Professor at the Academy of Applied Art and Architecture in Prague. Benish’s body of work has resulted in numerous awards, grants and nearly 200 exhibitions around the world and is represented in major public and private collections including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Stadts Museum in Nurnberg, Germany. Benish helped found the Experimental Graphics Atelier at the Academy of Art in Brno (Czech Republic), one of the first foreign women to be invited into the Academy in that country after the changes of 1989. She has exhibited internationally for nearly 30 years, including at the Venice Biennale, Pomona Museum (USA), and P.S.1 Museum in New York. Ms. Benish has taught and lectured on art at University of California, as well as in Prague. In 2004 Benish founded the NGO Art Dialogue, based in the Czech countryside, which supports an artist-run gallery, international exhibitions, workshops, and an artist-in-residency program at ArtMill, a center focusing on sustainable art and its effects on social change.  She is an Affiliate with the Social Practice Arts Research Center at U.C. Santa Cruz, where she is focusing on a marine sanctuary public art project.  Ms. Benish is currently co-authoring a book on environmental art for Routledge Press (2016).

Israeli vocal artist Victoria Hanna’s work will be included in Price’s version of The Song of Songs. Hanna’s work is an aural parallel to Price’s visually based project.  An article online in The Times of Israel said: “Hanna is known for mesmerizing interpretations of traditional Jewish texts (both Hebrew and Aramaic) that combine traditional Middle Eastern sounds with contemporary genres, such as rap and hip-hop. Among her religious literary inspirations are the biblical Song of Songs and the Kabbalistic “Sefer Yetzirah” (The Book of Creation).” In this online video Hanna discusses the words and performs some text from The Song of Songs.

Price struggled to find a Hebrew typeface that had the visual characteristics she was seeking for her version of the The Song of Songs. The typeface Makeda by Israeli graphic designer Liron Lavi Turkenich incorporates both the visual and symbolic components sought by Price. Turkenich writes on her web site: “Makeda, is a typeface designed in three scripts which bring together different worlds. Hebrew, Amharic (Ethiopic) and Latin are harmonised with each other, while maintaining loyalty to the unique structure of each script. The story of Makeda, the Ethiopian Queen (also known as the Queen of Sheba) is a story of a powerful and mysterious woman, traveling to meet King Solomon in a history changing act. The typeface is intended for multi script use, suitable as a text typeface with generous x-height and large counters.”