Super Natural
2020
Statement
There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the farfetched, and those who believe that ‘belief’ must be discarded and replaced by ‘the scientific method’. Between these two extremes there is enough scope for believing the reasonable and reasoning on sound beliefs.
– Max Born, Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance
Humanity’s “progress of knowledge” and the “evolution of consciousness” have too often been characterized as if our task were simply to ascend a very tall cognitive ladder with graded hierarchical steps that represent successive developmental stages in which we solve increasingly challenging mental riddles, like advanced problems in a graduate exam in biochemistry or logic. But to understand life and the cosmos better, perhaps we are required to transform not only our minds but our hearts. For the whole being, body and soul, mind and spirit, is implicated. Perhaps we must go not only high and far but down and deep. Our world view and cosmology, which defines the context for everything else, is profoundly affected by the degree to which all out faculties–intellectual, imaginative, aesthetic, moral, emotional, somatic, spiritual, relational–enter the process of knowing. How we approach “the other,” and how we approach each other, will shape everything, including our own evolving self and the cosmos in which we participate.
– Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View
SUPER/NATURAL consists of a series of collages, sculptures, photographic works, found objects and altered books. The artist’s trademark ‘altered books’ function as narrative clues, intertexts or ‘subtitles’ accompanying the other works, referring to subject matter ranging from the History of X-rays, Camera Obscura, Astronomy and Physics.
This body of work invites us to be curious; to dig a little deeper into the mysterious nature of reality and our beliefs about it. Our understanding of the supernatural and science is constantly evolving. While the role of science has been to demystify and decode the supernatural, recent forays into quantum physics – a field of reality that cannot be seen with our physical eyes – continue to reveal strange phenomenon, spooky actions and mysterious entanglements. For example “if you observe a particle in one place, another particle—even one light-years away—will instantly change its properties, as if the two are connected by a mysterious communication channel” (Popkin 2018).
There is still much more to be understood about the nature of reality, its invisible forces and connecting patterns and the part we as humans play in observing and co-creating it. Guided by her intuition, the artist herself is on a quest to understand more. Through participating intentionally in the act of co-creation, she becomes a conduit for synchronistic unfoldings. Delving into the realms of astrology, astronomy, science, karma and kama, the exhibition will explore related themes of superstition, intuition, premonition, predestination and ancestry. Objects, laden with scientific and spiritual import, have been singled out for our consideration, and the artist’s special attention.
Second hand books, old maps, a camera obscura, a telescope, the children’s game of snakes and ladders, a mysterious gift, a carefully positioned ladder – all these have found their way into the body of work, setting an unpredictable chain of events in motion that will culminate in the Super/Natural exhibition- the opening date of which was chosen for its astrological significance. On this auspicious day, we are invited to consider a variety of ways in which humans feel compelled to interpret, fix and navigate the mysteries of life with symbols, maps, scientific devices and occult apparatus. On this adventure, the artist teases out hidden meanings, correspondences and signs, exploring the contentious territory between what is seen and what is unseen, known and unknown. Both involve levels of nature. The supernatural also operates on ‘natural’ laws – although we can’t see them. Magnetism, gravity and electricity, the celestial orbits and star cycles are all phenomena ‘discovered’ by science, yet their mysteries have not yet been entirely revealed. It is in this liminal space, between what we know, what think we know and what we do not yet know, that the Super/Natural exhibition experience positions us.
The exact opening date for this exhibition is 6pm on 12 November 2020. This date and time was pinpointed by the UK based Vedic Astrologer, Richard Alwin Fidler as a collaborative performance piece involving audience participation. It also precedes the astronomical event of a Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which will take place on 21 Dec.