Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience

Description

While place-based pilgrimage is an embodied practice, it can be experienced in its fullness through built environments, assemblages of souvenirs, and vocal chanting. Imaging Pilgrimage focuses on contemporary art that is created after a pilgrimage and intended to act as a catalyst for the embodied experience of others. Each chapter focuses on a contemporary artwork that links one landscape to another—from the Spanish Camino to a backyard in the Pacific Northwest, from Lourdes to South Africa, from “Jerusalem” to England, and from Ecuador to California. The close attention to context and experience allows for popular practices like the making of third-class or “contact” relics to augment conversations about the authenticity or perceived power of a replica or copy; it also challenges the tendency to think of the “original” in hierarchic terms. Imaging Pilgrimage brings various fields into conversation by offering a number of lenses and theoretical approaches (materialist, kinesthetic, haptic, synesthetic) through which to engage objects that become sites activated through religious and ritual praxis and negotiated with not just the eyes, but a multiplicity of senses. While place-based pilgrimage is an embodied practice, it can be experienced in its fullness through built environments, assemblages of souvenirs, and vocal chanting. Imaging Pilgrimage focusses on contemporary art that is created after a pilgrimage and intended to act as a catalyst for the embodied experience of others. Each chapter examines a contemporary artwork that links one landscape to another – from the Spanish Camino to a backyard in the Pacific Northwest, from Lourdes to S. Africa, from Jerusalem to England, and from Ecuador to California. The close attention to context and experience allows for popular practices like the making of ‘contact’ relics to augment conversations about the authenticity or perceived power of a replica or copy; it also challenges the tendency to think of the ‘original’ in hierarchic terms. Imaging Pilgrimage brings various fields into conversation by offering a number of lenses and theoretical approaches (materialist, kinaesthetic, haptic, synaesthetic) through which to engage objects that become sites – activated through religious and ritual praxis and negotiated with not just the eyes, but a multiplicity of senses. Cover page Halftitle page Praise for Imaging Pilgrimage Title page Copyright page Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Pilgrimage as Art, Art as Pilgrimage Notes 1 Vashon Island → Spain1 A Backyard Camino From Cyrene to the Veranda: origins and continuities “I have a trail where I paint with mud”: material culture of the backyard Camino Film as pilgrimage: a case study Conclusion—ends and beginnings . . . Notes 2 South Africa → Lourdes Souvenirs as Sites How and why an apparition was first “made material” Mary, materiality, and message: a pilgrimage through art Water, water everywhere! The Lourdes replica tradition Conclusion Notes 3 England → Jerusalem Rewilding Through Pilgrimage Song and Chant Songs of the Old Way Music as a healing relic: the songs of Godric, hermit saint of Finchale A pilgrimage for Jerusalem: “And did those feet”? Art along the Way Afterword: Bountiful, West Jordan, and Zion Park Notes 4 Oakland → Ecuador Haciendo marcas otra vez —Making Marks, Again Objects as sites of extratemporal communitas: Xbus, holy water, religious images Mapping the sacred landscape: Quechuan and Catholic contexts Widening the lens: religious art in the contemporary artworld Conclusion Notes 5 Los Altos → Everywhere “The End Is Where We Start From” Labyrinthine forms through culture and time The Ignatian imagination and the commissioning of labyrinths The commissioning of the Los Altos Labyrinth The compatibility of labyrinths with Ignatian spirituality Pilgrim experiences: faith embodied Labyrinths at other Ignatian retreat centers and universities: Boston College and Manresa Jesuit Centre for Spirituality, Dublin Conclusion Notes Toward a Conclusion: “As Far as the Eye Can Travel” Notes References Index Plates