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shrines_house_spirit [2021-06-14 12:02] rasashrines_house_spirit [2021-07-09 08:45] (current) rasa
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-<fs large>Spirituality is not necessarily linked to a specific religion. Ancient tribes and “primitives” had their own believes that helped to explain their surroundings and make sense of being. Godly beings, spirits, deities and other creatures had place in their lives and accompanied them in joys and sorrows. Some of these believes grew into or got picked up by larger religions, others stayed on the level of tales and myths. In any case these stories thought respect to everyone and everything around and acknowledged deeper powers of belonging in this world and beyond +<fs large>Spirituality is not necessarily linked to a specific religion. Ancient tribes and “primitives” had their own beliefs that helped to explain unknown aspects of their surroundings and make sense of their being on this earth. Godly beings, spirits, ghosts and other creatures had place in their lives, accompanying them in joys and sorrows. Rituals worshiping them provided stability and helped to deal with life challenges. Some of these beliefs grew into larger religions, others remained on the level of folktales and myths. Before landing on the paper these tales traveled from place to place or from generation to generation following small or big changes made by each storyteller just like a public shrine</fs> 
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 <fs large>Different religions accentuate that you don’t get to paradise without suffering. Or, you have to behave according to certain rules and forget about yourself, to be rewarded later. But when is that later? This doctrine is deeply imbedded in our lives as if it is carved in our bones. We are so preoccupied with all those amazing things that will happen after... you’ll graduate, you’ll build the house or earn lots of money, you’ll get kids or kids will leave the house or … you die?...We wait for the weekend to do fun stuff, we book expensive holidays with expectation to be happy then. We plan and plan and plan and live in the state of constant expectation that those short moments of relief will make us happy and reward us for all tiredness, misery, hardness we experience now. Just like now we are waiting for covid restrictions to be lifted with an idea that then we will live again. But what about Now? Can we be happy now even if the times or circumstances are not perfect?</fs>  <fs large>Different religions accentuate that you don’t get to paradise without suffering. Or, you have to behave according to certain rules and forget about yourself, to be rewarded later. But when is that later? This doctrine is deeply imbedded in our lives as if it is carved in our bones. We are so preoccupied with all those amazing things that will happen after... you’ll graduate, you’ll build the house or earn lots of money, you’ll get kids or kids will leave the house or … you die?...We wait for the weekend to do fun stuff, we book expensive holidays with expectation to be happy then. We plan and plan and plan and live in the state of constant expectation that those short moments of relief will make us happy and reward us for all tiredness, misery, hardness we experience now. Just like now we are waiting for covid restrictions to be lifted with an idea that then we will live again. But what about Now? Can we be happy now even if the times or circumstances are not perfect?</fs> 
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 <fs large>**Why Shrine?**  <fs large>**Why Shrine?** 
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-There is something attractively collective and democratic about public shrines. There is no one author of it. Only the initial form and invitation for action can be created by one person. What happens after is beyond control. Informal participation of passersby creates everchanging visual aesthetics and energetical charge. Respect for what is already there and negotiation where your contribution finds its place creates dialog. The constant accumulation of various objects adds strength and intensity to the experience. You are not alone yet your thought and action are as important as any other, represented in the shrine.  
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-<fs large>** A Shrine for Now** (working title) 
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-Since very short I am a volunteer at a retirement home for people with dementia. There is a closed ward for patients with most advanced stage of this illness. Spending time there is touching, emotional and confronting. Will my parents end up like that? My friends? Myself? Being among these people is also very interesting and inspiring. As if humanity gets peeled off to its core. Only very basic mechanical actions are possible, only very basic true emotions. Some patients light up by hearing their name or a sentence in their mother tongue, others burst in tears from recognising their favourite melody or a face in the picture on the wall. All of them live in that one exact moment, the moment when the mind is still capable to make sense of what’s around them. Moment of epiphany. And then they sink back into the unknown. In this ward there is very little of yesterday and there is no tomorrow. If you can enjoy beauty, warmth, touch and happiness you have to enjoy it now. Because Now it’s all there is. 
  
  
 +<fs large>There is something attractively collective and democratic about public shrines. There is no author, director or designer of it. Only the initial form, frame or/and basic rules of action gets created by a person(s). What happens after is beyond control. Informal participation of passersby, spontaneous rituals create everchanging visual aesthetics and energetical charge. Respect for what is already there and negotiation where your contribution finds its place builds dialog. The constant accumulation of various objects adds strength and intensity to the experience. 
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-<fs large>With my work **Shrine for Now** I would like to create an awareness of magic, beauty, weirdness, humor, happiness… that is all around us here and now. And, by doing that put sites, places, visual marks and living characters seen and found in and around Zwalm in focus. I’d like to bring to attention the small, at first glance common and insignificant “treasures” that are filled with preciousness, beauty or weirdness. Because each step we take we can see something special or something that deserves our appreciation.  
-I would like to invite to take a moment and think of Now. What is there around you? Do the traces, stories, images and symbolic representations of my encounters with Zwalm inspire or question your state of being? Is there something that bothers you or makes you smile? What thoughts deserves your time and attention? Is there something you want to tell your partner, friend, child, parent but are waiting for the right moment? Perhaps that time is Now? As for Now is the best time there is.  
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-<fs large>**How to Shrine?** 
  
-large, old, wooden wardrobe is installed in a young forest behind the villa Vrede”. It serves as the casing for the shrine. The inside panels of the wardrobe are created by stone printing the graveyardsbrick walls and other surfaces in the surroundings of ZwalmThe words and patterns from the stones are applied on big canvas and placed inside of the wardrobe to create a clear environment for the shrine to be. From the random conversations with local people important keywords about their experience of happiness, joyfun and good times are written (or printed) on the tracing paper and layered on top of the canvasPictures, donated magazine or newspaper snippets fill the empty gaps to create visual accents of the total image. Discarded broken objects gets collected and transformed into number of small figurines as symbolic representation of different characters and experiences. These hangs or are placed in the wardrobe accumulating volume and forming a sense of mystery. There are QR codes displayed among the images and objects linking to the pictures and the stories of the exact locations in ZwalmIn the drawers of the cupboard more of the broken/found objects and material is storedDuring the festival people are invited to create their own little figurineswrite down own words or make other kind of contribution to be placed into the **Shrine for Now**This way the shrine will grow and carry all those important emotions to be shared with everyone.+<fs large>**Anything but the weevil"** is a shrine for all invisible, imperfect, insignificant yet diverse and precious creatures (dead or alive) we are surrounded by everywhere and every day. These creaturesno matter how common and scruffy it might seem to be, have hidden powers of guiding us into the world of magicThis shrine invites you to take moment to look around and search for what you might find preciousbeautiful and worthy exactly on the spot that you are standing on. Is it the color of the grass, shadow of the leaves, weird bug or irregularities of the tree bark? Once you do find it, you can contribute to the shrine to celebrate and worship your insignificant element of beautyThis growing shrine is our growing tale of what we appreciate most nowadaysBecause when we talk about folklore, we forget that also now we are creating our own talestraditions, ritualsAnd, based on those tales’ future generations will interpret how we lived with each other and what sense we made of our surroundings and environment.
  
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 +<fs xx-large>**Abandoned ideas**</fs> 
  
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  • shrines_house_spirit.1623672138.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2021-06-14 12:02
  • by rasa