Set 1: Safety.Sanctuary.Set of Web. for the Cork City Sanctuary & UCC
30.01. - 17.02.2018
A story within a story
As I started exploring the value - safety - in nature and the human inner-nature context, I resonated with the term, sanctuary, which referred to a place, a here. I seek the meaning of this word in each place I continue the exploration of the first value. The Cork City of Sanctuary found my Safety.Sanctuary. set interesting and asked if I would like to join forces. I examine the value of safety in a wide context and in connection with nature but I was really intrigued at this connection. I did not realise that Cork city wished to become one (check out more details below). I decided to add one more question to my questionnaire related directly to the idea of Cork becoming a City of Sanctuary. This was such a learning curve for me, a very enriching one too. .
It was an intense but fantastic two weeks. I performed one to one the Safety.Sanctauary.Set of Web. poem and engaged people in the installation. I met many wonderful refugees and asylum seekers who shared their poetry and paintings with me but also contributed to the installation. I found out about their lives, upheavals and challenges.
I was deeply touched on numerous occasions. Yet, one situation in particular stuck with me. I had an exhibition of photos and just below the photography of flowers from the first set I placed a singing bowl as in an altar. I was using the singing bowl whenever I was performing a poem for someone and afterwards I placed it back on the altar. One time a woman kneeled on the ground and rung the singing bowl looking up at the flowers and prayed/mediated in silence. It was unexpected and it touched me deeply for she was responding to this place not minding it was a library. Every time I picked up the singing bowl I had that memory in my mind and it always put an additional smile on my face.