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| Quiet Service, Video Still, 2013 |
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| Quiet Service, Video Still, 2013 |
CONGREGATE: art + faith + community
For the past five months, I have been working on a project commissioned for the exhibition CONGREGATE: art + faith + community. This program establishes artist residencies within five houses of worship in Baltimore's Station North Arts and Entertainment District.
Curated by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) M.F.A Curatorial Practice class of 2014, six artists were invited to create communal experiences, where art and faith communities come together in order to develop a better understanding of one another.
My work in Baltimore involved traveling between four of the five participating congregations. The project, Quiet Service, is a video installation that explores the states of being that worship ignites.
What I am drawn to is the spiritual space that people get into through religious rituals, the experience of being in and out, both here and elsewhere, at the same time. There are aspects of worship that involve the barest of detail--a connection, a sense, or an understanding of what it is to be human.
Quiet Service (a term I borrowed from Susan Romantic of St. Marks Evangelical Lutheran Church) tries to capture some of those moments. Working with the congregations, I learned that worship isn’t simply seeing it as another person sees it and trying to be one with them; it’s more about empathy, or a dynamic process of getting closer, but also never forgetting where you’ve come from, and how the process of coming and going alters both where you came from and where you have arrived.
CONGREGATE: art + faith + community
Curated by MICA’s M.F.A in Curatorial Practice class of 2014
Opening Reception Friday, September 6, 2013 5pm-7pm
On View September 6–September 25, 2013
Sheila and Richard Riggs and Leidy Gallery
Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
Graduate Studio Center
131 W. North Ave. Baltimore, MD 21201
Participating Artists/Congregations:
Bashi Rose / 7th Metro Church
Katherine Kavanaugh / Saint Michael's All Angels Episcopal Church
Leo Hussey / St. Marks Evangelical Lutheran Church
Laure Drogoul / Spiritual Empowerment Center
Tiffany Jones / New Second Missionary Baptist Church
Leigh Davis / All congregations
For more information about the exhibition go here
