a
project to re-evaluate the
body in a capitalist world
Body
Psalms is a celebration of the sanctity of the body through performance
rituals and video sculptures involving dancers and diverse ordinary
people unfolding passages of mystical texts painted on their skin to
create moving sculptural poetry.
In a capitalist culture increasingly
governed by the ethics of pornography, where nothing is too sacred to
be exploited by amoral commercial forces, the body becomes the
preferred currency. Is this what we are meant for?
This
art is meant to invite dialog between separate value systems– personal,
corporate and religious- that each one of us engages in our own way,
but that are rarely addressed together. I see the current
devaluation of the body as akin to climate change- a world problem
that, regardless of whether we ignore it or face it, will increasingly
effect our lives.
“Approaching
our own flesh with an attitude of deep respect
opens us to
truly see dignity in others.”
-Tim
Holmes
Body Psalms Project video teaser.
In Mirabai's Mountain the
words
“two flames” combine to form the
word
“one”.
Body Psalms university course
"Shikibu"s House" fan
dance
Body Psalms performance
Project
Statement
The
transcendent value or
sacredness of the
body is a fairly universal theological
constant
and yet
so is the tendency of capitalism, which is rapidly becoming world
monoculture,
to abandon the image of the body to commercial forces.
This creates a
largely unconscious incongruity as religious institutions, unwilling to
question their traditions, are caught unprepared for a world changing
beneath their very feet. The Body
Psalms films addresses
this
dichotomy in a gentle, straightforward and positive form– through
celebration, not criticism– as an invitation to re-evaluate the flesh.
The
Body Psalms
Project is a 12-year multi-tiered exercise in social
engagement using art as a metaphor to reach people wherever their lives
have meaning, whether that be through traditional institutions or on
the street. Art is a radical act of the soul and this work is aimed at
engaging souls– wherever they are– in creative struggle.
"Word
Made Flesh Made Word" 1:20, 2005
"The
flesh is a metaphor for every body we know, our own, that of the human
family and that of the the Great Mother the Earth. We treat
them
all about the same."
