Nature Speaking of Nature to Nature : Animistic Communication Between the Veil of Reality and Fantasy

Abstract

Through the lense of Animism, the belief that every thing has a spirit and thus possesses its own agency, I am examining my engagement with materials in a subconscious collaboration that is mutually transformative. My own art practice I intuitively collaborate with natural magic and the energies and entities that occur through intrinsic interactions with the nature of all things. Humans who participate in communication with nature are indialogue with nature within themselves and are thus part of nature. As radical feminist philosopher Susan Griffin says we are “Nature speaking of nature to nature”.In this thesis I talk about my past work in sculptural costume making, poeticized archetypes and creating Living Cartoons. How this discipline bridged through my moving to Iceland from Canada and how I am exploring new sculptural disciplines with similarresults, surfacing Ambassadors from another realm.All these elements come together in my work, when engaged with, to create a vortex of healing and initiation of change. Instead of a performative events, as I made in the past, I am making eventful vessels: containers of energy. When the viewer engageswith this object, or I with it during the creation process, the engagement becomes an event that activates the spirits who have collaborated in the making of it. In this event there is acommunication that opens the in-between, a liminal space, where the potential for transformation is possible and the line between fantasy and reality is dissolved.