Collective contemplation — Let silence and the material speak
Is trying to make art by following the instructions of the analytical mind soothing and liberating, or does it lead to more anxieties and torment? And what if we go in the complete opposite direction by making art as an attempt to abandon the mind?
We, as artists, or more generally, creative makers, are obsessed with “expressing ourselves”. To dig out and express something from deep within the “self ”, that psychological, emotional and sociopolitical space that (we think) we occupy, seems to be the whole point of creativity.
Regardless of this or that “ism”, regardless of religions and rituals, there are non-Western modes of thinking according to which, the whole notion of the independent “self” is a delusional construct of the “mind”, and at the root of much of our suffering.
In each “Collective Contemplation” session, the participating artists practice “motional meditation” in a collective way. They are encouraged to develop their own ways of meditating by interacting with the material of their choice, in silence, without thinking of and hoping for a certain result in advance.
“Motional meditation” can be seen as a way of disempowering the mind purely by doing, by physically and repetitively engaging with a certain material, as opposed to “sitting meditation”, where the method is total stillness. The main point here is to simply interact with the material at hand without intending to make an “artwork”. What comes out is not a predetermined expression of the artist’s “mind” or “self”, but a byproduct of a process of abandoning the mind, which consequently and inadvertently results in an artistic representation.
The club members in the first gathering summer 2021 are: Adriaan Luteijn, Alireza Abbasy, Anastasia Shin, Eun Lee, Mike Megens, Ryan Lim Zi Yi and Sam Bachy. In the autumn of 2021, the second round of this gathering involves Defne Tesal, Fatemeh Danesh, Hussel Zhu, Zela Odessa and Zoë d'Hont.
Supported by: Mondriaan fonds, CBK R’DAM
Co-operator: Sarmad Magazine