BEYOND THE VEIL
Jungian psychology emphasizes the importance of the unconscious and the symbolic nature of human behaviour. Jung believed that the unconscious mind contains not only repressed emotions and desires but also a collective unconscious that connects all humans and reflects shared archetypes and symbols.
In my project, I first created an abstracted painting, a self portrait of sorts. The act of shredding the painting represents the tearing away of the false façade presented to the world. The veil created by the shredded pieces of the painting symbolizes the fragments of the self that are hidden beneath the surface. By exposing these fragments, I want to shed light on the complexity and depth of the human psyche.
The veil represents the masks we wear to protect ourselves from the world. It encourages viewers to look beneath the surface and consider the true nature of the self.
I found this piece in the making space at the RCA White City campus and picked it up. I felt like it emulated my own feelings about myself. I really liked this aspect of a barrier in the form of the metal grid between the inside and outside, almost like another layer that one would have to work through to get to the self.
I took the puzzle pieces that I had created for my Safehouse project, the different fragments that represented the different shadows and versions of the self that are birthed in the same space but end up expanding and growing and taking on characteristics of their own.
After collaging the fragments, I stitched them together, onto back fabric piece and replaced the plain white fabric with a new tapestry representing the pieces of the inner self.
The final piece of work in this project was the aspect of a space that emulates this hidden part of the mind. I wanted to create a space for introspection, where the veil creates a cocoon of safety to hide the self. I wanted viewers to be able to interact with this space and bring a piece of themselves into it to make it their own space for introspection. Here, the fragmented self is replaced by the viewer, where they replace it with their own fragments.
The basis for this sound piece was to create something to supplement the act of introspection and meditation. I chose to use this Tibetan singing bowl because the continuous sound of the vibration of the mallet against the bowl sounds very similar to the ringing sound of tinnitus that I experience. Although jarring, I often focus on the ringing of my tinnitus to ground myself in especially during wanted to recreate this experience using an object that has traditionally been used to create grounding meditative sound through its vibration, turning into an incessant ringing that becomes a marker to work through to get to stillness.
My performance piece, Beyond the Veil, intended to demonstrate the act of conscious pause and introspection through meditation. I meditated to the sound of the Tibetan singing bowl on loop for exactly 21 minutes. I chose this number specifically because it is the third multiple of 7, a number carrying great spiritual significance in Cedic practice. On a deeper level, I wanted to depict the 3 stages of meditation: Dharana, holding the attention of an object, the breath and the sound of focus. Dhyanam, the relationship between the mind and the object of attention. Samadhi the merging of the object and mind.
