Join us for a lecture, with accompanying slide show, with a pioneer of the Women’s Spirituality Movement, Starr Goode.
Join us for A New Spirit of Our Time, a lecture with accompanying slide show with a pioneer of the Women’s Spirituality Movement, Starr Goode. This lecture is part of a series of programming curated by Kathryn Garcia, which draws inspiration from Garcia’s TEMPLO installation and is presented as part of The Performance Project.
A new spirit stirs the consciousness of our times. Women artists are reclaiming the vulva as an icon of primal creative energy. It is time to be empowered with the knowledge of our true, natural heritage so often suppressed by patriarchal bias. It is time to restore to our culture the immense history of female creative power. The cyclical nature of reality has brought the sacred triangle of the Goddess back, to help us find our rightful place in the circle of life by returning us to our most ancient human roots.
Sign-up for other TEMPLO events here.
About Starr Goode
Starr Goode, MA, teaches writing and literature at Santa Monica College. She is producer and moderator for the cable TV series The Goddess in Art(available on YouTube). An award-winning writer, she has been profiled for her work as a cultural commentator in such publications as the L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker. Her essay, “Adventures She Has Brought My Way” appears in the anthology Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement, Elders and Visionaries. Her previous work on the Sheelas was published in ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation, the Irish Journal of Feminist Studies, the three-volume encyclopedia Goddesses in World Culture, About Place Journal, and in The Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History. A recent book, The Art of Living: Falstaff, the Fool, and Dino, explores the power of wit and the importance of play. Her latest book, Sheela na gig, The Dark Goddess of Sacred Power, is published by Inner Traditions. It won the 2018 Sarasvati Award for Best Non-Fiction Book presented by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. Her latest essay, “The Icon of the Vulva, A Basis of Civilization,” has recently been published in The Journal of Archaeomythology, Spring 2021.
About TEMPLO
TEMPLO consists of an installation of 4 large-scale pyramids, a central altar, a film, and a participatory performance. The Pyramids act as energetic and physical anchors and are meant to be entered. As part of the experiential nature of the performance the visitors are invited to participate in a meditative offering. The video acts as a backdrop – a journey into the Divine Feminine, expressed as a reverent connection with the earth, and our cosmos (as epitomized by the sun’s light reflected in the sculptures). The cycles of death and rebirth are evoked in ritualistic scenes shot within Phoenician tombs, and neolithic burial chambers. Rituals at ancient sites consecrate a deep honoring of our sacred Earth, and Her mysteries. Scenes of the Sea invoke the watery depths of the feminine. As part of the opening ceremony sound healers will be performing in situ.
‘Spiritual interchange and oneness between woman and earth as forms of therapeutic, internal healing also figure’s in Kathryn Garcia’s mesmerizing multi-media works. Filmed in Ibiza, a Spanish island, the artist’s video footage features Garcia in striking ritualistic goddess poses which emulate historical ancient iconography. In the backdrop hovers Es Vedrà, the uninhabited Goddess Island near Ibiza, a well known energetic vortex. By channeling feminine wisdom and spirituality, Garcia’s nude body serves as a bridge between terrestrial elements of the earthen ground and the cosmic qualities embodied in the beams of light radiating from the prisms. A hypnotic combination of video, light, performance, and sound healing in the artwork pull human consciousness towards the divine feminine, Garcia’s body behaving as the primary medium to usher a sense of cathartic release.’—Lisa Aubry
TEMPLO, a performance-based installation, will be on view and activated as part of The Performance Project from 4 – 17 March.
About Kathryn Garcia
Kathryn Garcia (b. Los Angeles, CA) lives and works between Los Angeles and the Mediterranean. Inspired by her spiritual practice and travels to ancient and sacred sites, Garcia works in a variety of media, including site-specific performance, video, sculpture, and drawing. Provocative and oftentimes interactive, her work engages with the Goddess Archetype as a means of reclaiming identity vis a vis the female body. Garcia’s bodies – her body, or the constructed bodies seen in her drawings, are created as vehicles for spiritual experience where the body becomes a sacred site. Her interactive works explore themes such as healing, mindfulness, participation, interconnectedness, and the experiential in art and are meant as offerings to the public. These offerings take place within immersive sculptures that the artist considers temples. Early on in her career, Garcia worked on international projects with Emi Fontana and Rirkrit Tiravanija, such as Women in the City (2008), Palm Pavilion (2008) and Asile Flottant (2010). Garcia’s work has been exhibited in the US and abroad, including The Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana; LAXART, Various Small Fires, 356 Mission, and Gavlak Gallery, all in Los Angeles; Pace Gallery, GBE, Participant, PS1-MOMA, all in NY; Ballroom Marfa, Texas; The Power Station, Dallas; Nina Johnson, Miami; Edel Assanti, Southard Reid, London; Embajada, Puerto Rico; Arredondo/Arozarena, Mexico City; and DESTE foundation, Greece.
Photo: Rahara Church Sheela, Co. Roscommon. Discovered in 1990 during a cleanup of an old graveyard. Photograph courtesy of the Co. Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society.
