DEVOTIONS: A REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
River AragonJune 25-27
GALLERY OPEN HOURS
WED June 25 • 3-4:30pm • Open hours
5-6:30pm • Limpia - a self-care ritual (BIPOC only) RSVP requested In this workshop we will gather and talk about cleansing rituals and the history of bathing and sweeping. We will end by performing limpia's on ourselves or each other if you choose.
THURS June 26 • 3-5pm • Open hours
6-7:30pm • Experimental Broom RSVP requested
In the space we will explore broom making and brooms as ritual and as portal makers. There will be different materials to make brooms and a chance to do sweepings. Those gathered will experiment and share ideas together.
FRI June 27 • 12- 5pm • Open hours
7-8:30pm: Closing/sweeping
Devotions: a reflective practice will explore the relationship between ancient ritual and power, inspired/influenced by the Obsidian Mirror/Smoking Mirror. This practice aims to recontextualize objects and bring them back into their indigenous and mythological context.
Throughout the project, River will be exploring the use of reflection, both material and talismanic, and investigating how mirrors are used as portals in their ancestral practice of curanderismo.
How does our devotion to these rituals influence and change our perception of reality and our belief in time and systems of power? How do we move forward through and while returning to ancient ritual?
Participants can both observe and take part in these devotional practices of reflecting in water, earth (body)*, mirrors, and soundscapes (in collaboration with Becca DeWitt and Nora Barr). All film projections done in beautiful and generative collaboration with Michelle Trujillo. This immersive project is both an extension of River’s ritual and earth work.
*earth (body) is an installation and tribute to Ana Mendieta's work of the same title.
ARTIST BIO
River Aragon is a practicing artist, healer, and land tender whose work is influenced by the earth, their ancestors and the sacred knowledge of Curanderismx. These verbal teachings are transformed and re-remembered through texture, shape and sound. This work lives at the intersection of human rights and borders which influence and continue to affect their ancestral inheritance and cultural practices. Their work as an artist bridges the ecological and social through land and water based performance and ritual.They use textiles and other sculptural materials to recontextualise and investigate everyday objects as a source of healing, as tools of access. They create forms that they then invite participants to help evolve and shape into objects of everyday use and ritual. This earthly connection creates a wholeness and fills the gaps in histories that did not have a chance of being told by their original peoples.
By reclaiming these ancestral practices and performing/sharing them with reverence, they reestablish and reclaim their relationship to their lineage, the universe, the earth, community and home.