UPDATED Introduction to Imaging Pilgrimage: Art As Embodied Experience (PB version 2023) (original) (raw)

Introduction: Pilgrimage as Art, Art as Pilgrimage

Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience, 2021

While place-based pilgrimage is an embodied practice, can it be experienced in its fullness through built environments, assemblages of souvenirs, and music? Imaging Pilgrimage explores 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) that engage objects as radical sites of encounter, activated through religious and ritual praxis, and negotiated with not just the eyes, but a multiplicity of senses. Table of Contents Acknowledgments List of Plates List of Figures Introduction: Art as Pilgrimage, Pilgrimage as Art I. Vashon Island – Spain: A Backyard Camino II. S. Africa – Lourdes: Souvenirs as Sites III. England – Jerusalem: Rewilding through Pilgrimage Song and Chant IV. Oakland – Ecuador: Haciendo marcas otra vez-Making marks, again V. Los Altos (Labyrinth) – Beyond: "The end is where we start from" Towards a Conclusion: "As Far as the Eye Can Travel" Bibliography

Pilgrimage and Materiality: Places, Bodies, and Collective Experiences

The worldwide practice of pilgrimage embodies the conference theme of dialectical tension between the universal and the particular, as individuals seek transcendent experiences through collective journeys. Salamanca – a way-point on the Camino de Santiago – is a fitting place to contemplate recent developments in pilgrimage studies. Pilgrimage practices are particularly multi-layered and complex in the Americas where, in many instances, Catholic and indigenous practices have intertwined and informed one another – hence, they constitute rich contexts from which to fruitfully elaborate on commonalities and differences. In pilgrimage contexts, the materialities of the shrines, the objects that circulate in them, and the bodies of the pilgrims are usually entangled through different semiotic ideologies and/or ontological presuppositions. Close attention to these materialities opens ways to explore the inherent multiplicities present in any pilgrimage. Transformative, meaningful, emotional experiences happen along pilgrimage journeys as well as at destinations. These are inscribed in different materialities, and thus their examination creates novel possibilities for exploring such multiplicities and the tensions, conflicts, and contestations that their relations suppose. Through paying special attention to the multiplicity of materialities, we propose to reexamine the types of politics that take place in pilgrimage practices. In this session, we will examine anthropological and archaeological studies of pilgrimage in the Americas, taking into consideration the new ways in which materiality is being examined, to shed new light on this widespread and truly global, yet profoundly emplaced, practice. Ponencias 12:00-12:30 Estados peregrinos y corporalidad en peregrinaciones de los desiertos mexicanos. neyra patricia alvarado solis El Colegio de San Luis A.C., México El análisis de peregrinaciones en los desiertos mexicanos resalta la corporalidad como el operador de transformación de los diferentes estados del peregrino y de los peregrinos, de las personas, animales, espacios y objetos (que pisan, tocan o con los que entran en contacto). El trabajo ritual que los peregrinos efectúan es la clave para la comprensión de estos fenómenos. En esta participación me interesa abordar cómo se efectúan los procesos de transformación del individuo y de la colectividad, en los diferentes estados peregrinos y de su entorno (personas, objetos, animales, plantas, lugares, entre otros) en peregrinaciones de los desiertos mexicanos. En estas transformaciones los peregrinos están en contacto con fuerzas ambivalentes y/o ambiguas (imágenes santas, ancestros familiares, animales y plantas, desierto, entre otros), permitiendo comprender esos complejos procesos. 12:30-13:00 Bodies' matter. An analysis of pilgrimage in contemporary indigenous Mexico Federica Rainelli Università degli Studi di Padova / École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Italia In the mountains of the Eastern Highlands, the Otomì Indians carry out numerous pilgrimages to the top of their sacred hills with the purpose of propitiating the arrival of the rainy season. These routes trace a sacred geography, which shapes an anthropomorphized landscape inhabited by the petrified bodies of the ancestors. Moreover, the ritual practices performed during the pilgrimage testify the central importance of the body conceived in its material aspect not as an obstacle, but as the conditio sine qua non necessary to transcendence. In the light of the above, the aim of this paper is to propose an analysis that will make the body the focal point in the attempt to account for the ideological presuppositions entailed by the bodies' multiple materialities: namely, 1) an ontological assumption by which a transcendent spiritual principle common to all living beings might be embodied in various tangible media; 2) an ethical imperative asserting a reciprocity principle based on a 'dynamic' conception of the cosmos; and 3) the socio-political consequences engendered by recognising a genealogical link between landscape and human beings. En esta ponencia propongo que existe una forma predominante de aprender y recordar entre los quechua hablantes andinos, la cual se centra en la unidad o relación intrínseca entre los sentidos de la visión, la audición y del movimiento (cinestesia). Desarrollo este argumento analizando de cerca la experiencia de la caminata durante la peregrinación al santuario del Señor de Qoyllor Rit'i (Nieve Resplandeciente) en Cuzco, Perú, que realizan por varios días los grupos de danzarines que participan en este evento anual. Durante esta peregrinación los participantes aprenden y recuerdan una serie de conceptos/sentimientos centrales en su sociedad. En la ponencia me centro en el concepto/sentimiento de pampachay el cual ha sido traducido al español como " perdón " desde los comienzos de la evangelización española. Exploro de cerca la experiencia de cargar piedras en la subida a las Apachetas (lugares de veneración) y depositarlas allí así como el recibir latigazos en estos lugares para lograr el pampachay. La caminata y las ceremonias en las Apachetas se realizan con el incesante acompañamiento de música de flauta y tambor. El santuario es el más alto del mundo, situado en las faldas del nevado Qollquepunku cerca de los 5,000 metros sobre el nivel del mar. He realizado esta peregrinación con los pobladores del pueblo de Pomacanchi en tres ocasiones 2,006, 2,008 y 2010. Pilgrimages involve journeys – movements and displacements – as well as spiritual encounters and social transformations. From the Turners' forays into 1970s liminality, to contemporary ethnographies of tourism, cross-cultural anthropological investigations into pilgrimage have focused on symbols and sacred places, communitas and contestation. But what of pilgrimage's materiality, as experienced by moving bodies? In this paper, I adopt a phenomenological perspective to consider bodies in motion; objects carried, venerated, deposited or left behind; clothing worn and gear adopted; trails, markers, and transportation; food and lodging. My goal at the end of this phenomenological journey is to shed archaeological light on the 11th century experience of pilgrimage to Chaco Canyon – the center of the ancient Pueblo world, in northern New Mexico.

The Afterlife of Religious Relics and Souvenirs in Contemporary Art

CAA Conference Abstracts, 2019

Paper Abstract: Recent scholarship in the field of medieval studies has shown the importance of souvenirs collected from sacred sites and used to extra-illustrate personal Books of Hours to create a multifaceted devotional experience (see, for example, Megan H. Foster-Campbell’s essay in Push Me, Pull You: Imaginative, Emotional, Physical, and Spatial Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art). This paper shifts the focus to the present day in order to explore the afterlife of religious souvenirs and third-class relics that have been incorporated into contemporary artworks. The work of three women artists working in media including assemblage, film, and installation will show the continuity of the idea of a perceived transfer of efficacy from a sacred site/object to their relocation in a work of contemporary art - and how such ritual engagement is received by the religious and art communit(ies) today. Panel Overview: From painted altarpieces to prayer rugs and reliquaries, museums are filled with objects originally created for use within a devotional or ritual practice. However, once removed from an overtly religious context and reframed within a public museum or art space, the function, audience, and perceived agency of these artifacts can change, as do the expected rules of viewer engagement. By exploring the intersection of art history, anthropology, and religious studies, this panel adopts a comparative and diachronic perspective to understand the historical and conceptual dynamics governing such acts of mediation for modern and contemporary audiences. Whereas museum professionals of the 19th century tended to separate the beliefs and practices of religious devotion from the aesthetic and pedagogical aims of the museum, scholars today increasingly recognize that the distinction between ritual devotion and a more objective aesthetic appreciation can be blurry. In the mid-1990s, Carol Duncan acknowledged the secular museum’s role within the staging of civic rituals. More recently, Crispin Paine and others have addressed the spiritual dimensions of contemporary art and the curatorial challenges of displaying sacred artifacts for heterogenous publics. Once religious material culture is displayed to audiences within museums of fine and decorative art, ethnography, and history, how does the process of musealization transform an object’s narrative potential? Although the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment museum paradigm privileges visual faculties above tactile or auditory, how can curators, artists, and museum educators today help audiences understand the performative, interactive, and multisensorial dimensions of devotional practices past and present?

UNCOVERING ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN BODY AND EARTH: PILGRIMAGE, WAYFARING AND RELATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGIES

Is there a relationship between the wayfarer and the physical geography traversed during pilgrimage along the Camino? Does relationship with the landscape inform the process of transformation, often alluded to in pilgrimage theory? Using Victor and Edith Turner’s theory of liminality and communitas as a starting point, this research explores potential ways in which the landscape exists as a relational entity, as ‘personhood’, within various wayfarer narratives. It examines the hypothesis that the terrain traversed imprints itself upon the wayfarer, critically alters perspective and contributes to the oft referred to transformational aspect in pilgrimage. It is proposed that the liminal quality of a shift in time proffered through pilgrimage, alongside the rhythmic movement of walking the Camino, allows for a shift in perspective, which brings the landscape into view. It is suggested, that where the physical geography is invested with significance, the relationship becomes one of interdependence, where the outer landscape becomes part of the wayfarers’ inner landscape and by extension the inner part of the outer. This co-constitutive exchange or self-in-relation epistemology is examined within the lens of place and personhood. This master thesis articulates an interpretive reading of nine narratives taken from three ethnographic studies. The narratives and ethnographies are read through the lens of recent debates around emplacement and personhood, specifically some recent theory pertaining to animism. It examines what it means in our exchanges of care (or absence of), in our stewardship of the earth to hold the perspective of a relational epistemology. What questions are raised if the landscape simply does not exist within much of the treatment pertaining to pilgrimage and religious studies? What does it lay as groundwork for the relationing (or absence of relationing) with the landscape and the elements of which it is comprised? This thesis proposes that the habitual treatment of landscape as a painterly surface has often obstructed any examination of a relational exchange. This relational exchange is shown to be a characteristic of emplacement in a sentient world. It is also a complex skill set (or literacy) which can be cultivated or lost over generations.

Religion and Art: Rethinking Aesthetic and Auratic Experiences in ʻPost-Secularʼ Times

Religions, 2019

Since the beginning of modernity, the relationship between art and religion has been a multifaceted one, characterized both by tensions and by productive exchanges. One can claim that the modern concept of “art” (and the corresponding modern institution of art) has been one of the “secular–religious” expressions of modernity. The language we have been employing to characterize thedomainof“finearts”and“esthetic”experienceshasbeenremarkably“religious”. We“meditate” in front of artworks; art allows us to experience a “spiritual” excitement; we make pilgrimages to see and venerate masterpieces in their (secular) sacred spaces (e.g., museums) that require a special decorum, inspiring the atmosphere of devotion. In this way (and following the lead provided by WalterBenjamin)wearewitnessinganexchangebetweenthe“aura”ofdevotional(religious-esthetic) objects, and the “aura” of (secular–religious) artworks. This exchange of “auratic” experiences can also be seen in the exchange of roles between traditional sacred spaces (churches) and modern (secular–sacred) museums: modernity has turned museums into places of silent worship of sacred objects (artworks), while churches have become exhibition spaces where most of the visitors go to see artworks and not to celebrate the Eucharist. The most recent developments testify to yet another reversal. Increasinglybusymuseumspaces—withtheirever-expandinguseoftechnologyandunder constantpressuretoembrace“participatoryculture”—arebecominglessandlessoftheold-fashioned quietspaceswithafocusonestheticcontemplationinfrontofapieceofart. Churches,onthecontrary, are providing such a context for carrying out practices associated with the traditional role of the museum, outside the time of church services. All of this presents us with the need to reconsider the question of the relationship between art, religion, and the sacred. How can we think of the “aura” of (sacred) contexts and (sacred) works? How to think of individual and collective (esthetic–religious) experiences? What to make of the manipulative dimension of (religious and esthetic) “auratic” experiences? Is the work of art still capable of mediating the experience of the “sacred” and under what conditions? What is the significance of the “eschatological” dimension of both art and religion (the sense of “ending”)? Can theology offer a way to reaffirm the creative capacities of the human being as something that characterizes the very condition of being human? This Special Issue aspires to contribute to the growing literature on contemporary art and religion, and to explore the new ways of thinking of art and the sacred (in their esthetic, ideological, and institutional dimensions) in the context of contemporary culture.

Reflecting on the pilgrim path: routes, landscapes and performing bodies

Proceedings of the 46th Conference of Irish Geography, 6th-10th May 2014, UCD, Dublin., 2014

In this paper, I explore how walking along pilgrimage routes is an involved process in which the self and landscape emerge and entwine. Following phenomenological and non-representational engagements with landscape as a practiced and unfolding space, I reflect on my own experiences walking Tóchar Phádraig, Co. Mayo, as a participant in group pilgrimages. My movements, conversations and feelings along these paths shape my considerations of the practice as an act of becoming that draws together the physical movement, the embodied participants and the location, as well as emotions, intentions and beliefs. Drawing my observant-participation and audio-visual recordings, I present moments and encounters along these paths from which the pilgrims and landscapes emerge.