Yarden’s BR Image Exploration
My photo of the forest.
How can I help connect myself and people with the earth and our energetic selves?
In my project I want to explore ways of connecting myself and others with the earth around, while exploring and connecting with our inner nature. I think humanity would benefit from re-connecting with the earth, and I think the first step is to re-connect with ourselves and learn how to explore our own energetic pathways. We are a piece of the earth and one with the earth, so we can understand everything about earth by re-discovering ourselves. The challenge for me was creating something material and physical, as most energetic practices are non material in essence. As I progressed and peeled away at my ideas, I found that what I am making is a shrine. A shrine creates a space to bring our attention to, and holds the energy of any intention we project. It can be used for any purpose, and my purpose is to create a meditation space where I can practice that is growing some plants that I can tend and nurture, as I nurture my own body and mind.
All over the world people create shrines, and in many places the objects in shrines are the most valued and respected. I want to move the vital objects in shrines away from material, and back to earth. For my shrine, I wanted to create a whole little ecosystem of plants, earth and water to be my points of value, while the case will be material. Here are a few glimpses into shrines from around the world.
Here is a christian shrine taken in Mexico.
Tham Phra Nang, Fertility Cave, Krabi, Thailand
Hindi Sufi Shrine, India
Steve Jobs Tears and tributes around the world as Apples legions of fans mark the death of Steve Jobs
Image I captured in Thailand of the famous White Temple, Thailand
Image I captured in a mini temple in Laos.
After exploring shrines around the world, I decided to explore in the woods and take photos of plants I may want to add to my shrine. These are some photos I took and developed myself.
Pinecone
moss
While frolicking in the woods taking photos, I decided to call my mom and ask her for photo taking advice. She used to work as a professional photographer and film developer. She suggested treating each photo as a gem, and instead of taking photo after photo quickly, take time and care for each photo and kind of pretend to be using film. She explained that when you paint or draw, you start with a blank canvas and create from there. When you take photos, you start with a full canvas, and are creating by extracting. While talking to her I found a spot where it looked like someone had created a little shrine awhile ago, and not to far away from the shrine I found some burned our candles. I decided to re-make this little shrine and take some photos of it.
Here is the shrine how I found it.
Here is the shrine when I added some leaves, pine cones, and my amethyst.
For the shell of my shrine, I will 3d print myself seated in meditation posture, and in the lap of the figure the plants will be growing. Instead of my head, I will place the head of the Buddha, but have his head 2 faced, looking forward and back. Here is the Buddha I extracted from thingiverse, and also the 2 headed Buddha that I will glue together.
3d print of Buddha head
The image focus of the project helped me visualize and make my idea more concrete. It also helped me gain experience in photographing, light room and digitally developing photos. I feel more connected to my project, as we discover and explore different pathways to experiencing our projects.
j
Your works was very clear and well laid out which flowed nicely when reading. I love that your question is about how to connect people back with earth, because I feel that is so important in coming ages and that we learn to see beyond the ego and cherish and explore our planet instead of seeing it as a profit sphere that we can plunder and pillage for own temporal societal means. If we could just just reach a collective cosmic understanding the possibilities for us and “spaceship earth” are limitless.
Yarden! Your project is raising so many important questions about space, meaning, and self. Starting with the terrarium and coming so far, I think the three-D scan aspect of your project is going to be so amazing. You were grappling with how to create a terrarium with meaning, that gave off the right energy and I think the image of yourself in meditation, at one with the Buddha will be exactly right. Connecting your body and mind with the earth and stillness. I cant wait to see it print!
Your project has developed into something much different than when you began. I like how it has shaped into something very personal which makes it appear to be an even more meaningful project form my perspective. Definitely worth printing. I am curious though, aside from your 3D scanned self what will you include in your shrine. You mentioned some natural materials. Are you using those? Why? How do they connect you to the earth and how will your project help others connect?
I have many questions about this piece and the photos you used to describe it so i’ll try to make this concise:
the main shrine in the evergreen forest is made of complied contraband and “trash” ie: broken marijuana paraphernalia, broken alcohol bottles, bottle caps, scrap metal, mementos of bonfires past, etc. why is this pile considered/referred to as shrine by those who contribute to it and why is it not trash? why do we lament the loss of our broken contraband and leave it in nature as a sacred collection?
what does it mean to be a practitioner of spirituality and make oneself the object of a shrine? are you, the subject and artist responsible for this work, equating yourself to a deity in relation to the sources of inspiration that inform this work?
are you your own entity of worship by doing so?
what does it mean to sent into the virtual to be materialized in the physical within the context of the (in)tangibility of spirituality?
in late capitalism why are we deitizing figures of success like steve jobs?
hopefully these questions healthily interrogate this work because i think the questions you are raising are incredibly relevant to the conversation of materiality, i urge you to stay conscious of the myriad of interpretations your work may produce and i really look forward to seeing the materialization of this project.