Artist Marisa J. Futernick takes visitors on a family vacation to the Catskill Mountains in her new exhibition. (photo courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center)

Pack your bags and join artist Marisa J. Futernick as she sifts through inherited and imagined memories of family vacations in the Catskill Mountains of New York with the Skirball Cultural Center’s new exhibition “Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream and Dirty Dancing,” opening May 1.

Colloquially known as the “Borscht Belt,” the region catered to working- and middle-class American Jewish families who, along with other minority groups, were excluded from many leisure spaces. The Catskills offered vacationers a newfound break from wage labor and forms of domestic labor, as well as a safe and welcoming place to enjoy family time.

“A Jewish contemporary artist sharing a lesser-known corner of Jewish American cultural history – this is a fabulous way to kick off Jewish American Heritage Month and the summer season,” said Jessie Kornberg, president and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center.

The exhibition includes a series of 15 prints drawn from vintage color slides of the artist’s maternal family on vacation in the Catskills during the 1960s, capturing the pleasure and freedom of the Catskills and asking questions about leisure, class and the lives of women in the U.S. at midcentury (1945-68). Additionally, visitors can see an installation created from the artist’s family mementos with an accompanying zine, using objects to connect to what leisure looked and felt like for Jewish vacationers. Attendees can also watch a new video artwork with several hundred still photographs and voiceover narration by the artist. In the video work, Futernick juxtaposes her mother’s and grandmother’s strong feelings of Jewish community – bolstered by their experiences in the Catskills – with her own relative lack thereof, provoking a conversation about assimilation and loss.

For information, visit skirball.org/museum/away-catskills-summers-sour-cream-and-dirty-dancing.

The Skirball Cultural Center is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd.