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Articles
Awakenings
Just days before New Zealand went into full level 4 lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus, my husband Graham and I spent an evening in a warehouse in Central Auckland, shooting this work titled Awakenings I. What we experienced that evening was surprising, strange, and otherworldly. As we worked in the dark with a video light, the huge transparent rainbow PVC balloon and organza mesh transformed. It became a levitating partially-concealed object of uncertain substance radiating dancing, shifting fields of colour and light that changed as we moved around and under it. The immediate encounter evoked a sense of wonder, acting for us as a threshold into an experience of the numinous.
Since that evening, I’ve wondered at the timing of this work; of how God might want to be at work in me, and in others during lockdown; of the possibilities waiting for us to be awakened to in these unusual circumstances.
‘Numinous’ means something mysterious, awe-inspiring, or supernatural; unknown or unknowable. It speaks to everything within the realm of our experience which cannot be quantified, explained, or contained. Our intuition, and our sweeping feeling-states. Our connection to the cosmos, and sense of the divine. The German theologian Rudolf Otto, in his book The Idea of the Holy (1923), explains it as a ‘non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self’.
Artistically, my interest is in the intersection of art and spirituality. This interest has led me to seek and receive inspiration (often through prayer and contemplation) and then to mediate the creation of spaces for audience/participants to engage with and within. The spaces are an effort to open up the potential for a viewer/participant to explore and experience the terrain of the numinous, including an awakening to a sense of wonder, and liminal moments of encounter with the divine.
A sense of awe and wonder is closely linked to our deep feelings and emotions, and is excited by something strange and surprising. With my work, I aim to provide a sense of awe and at the same time create a calm atmosphere, a sense of a place to just ‘be’; to observe, to explore, to create, to be present in the moment, to just breathe. It can be about connecting us with nature, with others, with our feelings, and developing a sense of things unknown outside of ourselves.
As Albert Einstein once put it:
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. S/He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead – his/her eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true spirituality.
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Karen Sewell is a visual artist who lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand. She is interested in the intersection of art and spiritual experience. She works across multiple media including sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, and photography, specialising in installation practice. She was the recipient of the Premier Award in the Waitakere Trust Art Award in 2011, and has exhibited work across New Zealand, with a highlight being Wonder Tree, 2019 at Splore Festival in February 2019. In addition to her creative practice, Sewell founded The Bonfire and now facilitates this national artist network. The aims of The Bonfire are to assist and support the thriving of other artists, through online blog posts and face-to-face regular meet-ups involving workshops, retreats, and events.
‘Go to Hell’
Collects in a Time of Virus – V
God of the harried,
Help us in the tension of these days,
for we are crushed by too many tasks,
nervous of new skills and tools in the too-much of this moment.
May we give heed without collapse,
restore our trust in longer spans of time – beyond the urgency of now.
Collect by Julie Perrin, published with permission.
Photograph by Ian Ferguson, published with permission.
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JULIE PERRIN IS A MELBOURNE WRITER, ORAL STORYTELLER, AND ASSOCIATE TEACHER AT PILGRIM THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DIVINITY. SHE KEEPS A WEBSITE, AND HER MOST RECENT BOOK IS TENDER. SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
IAN FERGUSON IS MINISTER OF THE WORD AT BRUNSWICK UNITING CHURCH. HE TOO LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
Collects in a Time of Virus – IV
Holy One who fears no fracture,
Lend your clarity to us for we are full of fear.
Already the abyss appears
Cracks in the earth, shifts in the ground we took for granted,
Now there is rupture
We do not trust our capacity to live.
That which is holy, divine, beyond us
frightens and allures us.
Call us to the mystery of the holy.
God of the despondent,
Who sees our tiredness at futile effort
Who knows that fear breeds phantoms,
help us we pray.
We are weary, and everywhere we turn
another impediment rises.
Our shoulders sag, the breath goes out of us.
In this stripped-back bareness, give us breath,
May we delight in our humanity, meet holiness anew.
Collects by Julie Perrin, published with permission.
Photographs by Ian Ferguson, published with permission.
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JULIE PERRIN IS A MELBOURNE WRITER, ORAL STORYTELLER, AND ASSOCIATE TEACHER AT PILGRIM THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DIVINITY. SHE KEEPS A WEBSITE, AND HER MOST RECENT BOOK IS TENDER. SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
IAN FERGUSON IS MINISTER OF THE WORD AT BRUNSWICK UNITING CHURCH. HE TOO LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
C-V 1
This painting is human in scale, 180cm x 122cm. Like everyone in the world at the moment, I am living in the time of the Covid19 Pandemic. I have chosen to make a series of paintings that reflect life in the present for me, and, and the experience of ‘lockdown’ where my days begin and end in my studio. The works are beyond my words. I hope they somehow address the mystery that surrounds us.
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DOUG PURNELL IS A PASTORAL THEOLOGIAN WHO IN HIS RETIREMENT IS FOCUSING ON A COMMITMENT TO A FULL-TIME STUDIO PRACTICE OF PAINTING THAT EXPLORES THE NATURE OF ABSTRACTION AND MARK MAKING. HE WAS FOR 17 YEARS THE DIRECTOR OF THE BLAKE PRIZE FOR RELIGIOUS ART. HE LIVES, WORKS, AND PLAYS ON THE LAND OF THE BURRAMATTAGAL PEOPLE.
Collects in a Time of Virus – III
God of Shadows,
give shelter to hollow, shaken humans
bewildered by sudden closure.
Sturdy structures shattered, hopeful trade ended,
meaningful work gone.
In the shocking silence where nothing can be said,
let birdsong be heard.
Collect by Julie Perrin, published with permission.
Photograph by Ian Ferguson, published with permission.
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JULIE PERRIN IS A MELBOURNE WRITER, ORAL STORYTELLER, AND ASSOCIATE TEACHER AT PILGRIM THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DIVINITY. SHE KEEPS A WEBSITE, AND HER MOST RECENT BOOK IS TENDER. SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
IAN FERGUSON IS MINISTER OF THE WORD AT BRUNSWICK UNITING CHURCH. HE TOO LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
Collects in a Time of Virus – II
Brooding God,
Who hovers over the waters,
Remain with us, for we are stranded on tiny islands of fear.
Draw a circle around our solitude,
hold us back from bringing danger to ourselves and others.
And where touch can no longer reach,
let love spin light across dark waters,
a thread of sweetness for small songs we might sing.
God who speaks the word ‘Beloved’
Keep watch on those who give voice to care,
Who speak trenchant truths,
explaining, instructing and chiding without blame.
Let us hear the warmth and strength in voices that stir response
and nourish hope in thoughtful action.
Give us ears to listen without fear.
God of the frail in body and mind,
be a companion in loneliness,
a consolation in absence,
a balm in mystified sorrow.
When doors, through fierce kindness must stay shut
Let love arise in memory of gesture and embrace.
Collects by Julie Perrin, published with permission.
Photographs by Ian Ferguson, published with permission.
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JULIE PERRIN IS A MELBOURNE WRITER, ORAL STORYTELLER, AND ASSOCIATE TEACHER AT PILGRIM THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DIVINITY. SHE KEEPS A WEBSITE, AND HER MOST RECENT BOOK IS TENDER. SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
IAN FERGUSON IS MINISTER OF THE WORD AT BRUNSWICK UNITING CHURCH. HE TOO LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
Collects in a Time of Virus – I
The Melbourne-based writer Julie Perrin, a regular contributor to the ATA site, has been writing a series of collects during and for this time. Julie has given us permission to repost them here, and we will do so throughout Holy Week.
These will be accompanied by some wonderful photography by Ian Ferguson, photos taken over the past 6 weeks while he has been in East Gippsland. Images are used with permission.
Those interested in audio/video recordings of the collects, as well as other COVID-19 worship resources, can access these via the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania website.
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God of those who are numbed,
stunned by loss,
enfold us in a gentle darkness,
a hidden sleep, a long stillness.
Re-member us to ourselves
awaken the courage we’d forgotten we had.
God who knows chaos
Who creates in darkness,
makes life from mud.
Give us back to ourselves
dissolved and helpless
may we feel ourselves forming
know our own shape.
Fierce Lover of life,
give strength to our arms and our resolve.
Critical is this time for cleaning, swabbing, scrubbing
and washing our hands again.
And again, and again.
Let us join ourselves to the task
with readiness, steadiness, clarity.
Because we too love life,
our own and our neighbour’s.
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JULIE PERRIN IS A MELBOURNE WRITER, ORAL STORYTELLER, AND ASSOCIATE TEACHER AT PILGRIM THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DIVINITY. SHE KEEPS A WEBSITE, AND HER MOST RECENT BOOK IS TENDER. SHE LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
IAN FERGUSON IS MINISTER OF THE WORD AT BRUNSWICK UNITING CHURCH. HE TOO LIVES AND WORKS ON WURUNDJERI LAND.
Now is the time to re-create the world
A response to ‘Is now the time to make art?’:
Now is the time to re-create the world
If the word was the beginning
then the idea preceded
– it didn’t get a mention –
yet amongst the symbols
light between dark
in the beginning was thought
that the light birthed before the word
the beginning, we began again
we think, therefore, we be
we practise the light between the dark
now, we practise the light
the dark, we’ll re-shape
with sentient hands, voices, bodies
minds, wombs,
re-create the world
(in the beginning was the word)
in the beginning, the eternal light
(the word was with God)
the unravelling, re-woven
(and the word was God)
before we speak, write, breathe, move
we remake the world
now is the time to re-create the world.
Image: Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office, In Absence (detail), 2019. The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Image by Ben Hosking.
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Barbara Curzon-Siggers is a published freelance non-fiction writer, poet, and pending novelist. She also works extensively with individual agencies and organisations transitioning to zero carbon emission and environmentally sustainable business practices, and sits on a number of local government and state government policy reference groups looking at the same. Currently, she is redesigning her life – like many other persons on the planet – in the light of this new SARS-CoV-2 reality. She lives and works on the land of the Dja Dja Wurrung.
Art/s and Theology Australia 