The Border Projects: New Communion
(work in progress)
This project will examine the role the sacred plays in border-making and eventually invites discussions around “the sacred” and the potential the sacred carries for both unity and division. Everything holds potential for sacredness--song, word, body, thought, scent, structure, movement, nature, river, money. And yet within an object’s (or site’s) designation as sacred, there may be different or conflicting reasons for its sanctity resulting in deep divides. For example, the properties of gold held spiritual significance for the Aztec people but were promise of supreme material wealth and power to the Spaniards. The city of Jerusalem is a prime example of a sacred and contested site.
In response to problematic ideologies within political discourse of the U.S. such as "the sanctity of life," "opinion as sacred," "money is the god of our time," "sacred land," we ask: What is sacred? What is sovereign? How are these related to covenant and treaty? To value? To borders and boundaries? What makes land/body/nation/religion sacred to one and not another? If sanctity is used as a divisive or exclusionary tool, is it possible to subvert it to be inclusionary? Is there something to be shared in ritual, experience, or conversation that offers unity on a deeper level despite differing value systems?
For this collaborative performance, we will work with a group of objects/symbols (each carrying multiple references to the sacred); this exercise is an attempt to secularize a religious ritual, and examine the relationship between the secular and spiritual, spiritual and religious, sacred and political. We will organize the objects into a three part ritual of Purification, Anointing, Sacrifice. We are interested in the act of gathering and sharing experience as a new communion of sorts, a relationship built through shared experience and resulting conversation.
(work in progress)
This project will examine the role the sacred plays in border-making and eventually invites discussions around “the sacred” and the potential the sacred carries for both unity and division. Everything holds potential for sacredness--song, word, body, thought, scent, structure, movement, nature, river, money. And yet within an object’s (or site’s) designation as sacred, there may be different or conflicting reasons for its sanctity resulting in deep divides. For example, the properties of gold held spiritual significance for the Aztec people but were promise of supreme material wealth and power to the Spaniards. The city of Jerusalem is a prime example of a sacred and contested site.
In response to problematic ideologies within political discourse of the U.S. such as "the sanctity of life," "opinion as sacred," "money is the god of our time," "sacred land," we ask: What is sacred? What is sovereign? How are these related to covenant and treaty? To value? To borders and boundaries? What makes land/body/nation/religion sacred to one and not another? If sanctity is used as a divisive or exclusionary tool, is it possible to subvert it to be inclusionary? Is there something to be shared in ritual, experience, or conversation that offers unity on a deeper level despite differing value systems?
For this collaborative performance, we will work with a group of objects/symbols (each carrying multiple references to the sacred); this exercise is an attempt to secularize a religious ritual, and examine the relationship between the secular and spiritual, spiritual and religious, sacred and political. We will organize the objects into a three part ritual of Purification, Anointing, Sacrifice. We are interested in the act of gathering and sharing experience as a new communion of sorts, a relationship built through shared experience and resulting conversation.