Creative Bridges: Transpersonal Art Exhibition and Roundtable

EMERGENCE

Art first emerged as a uniquely human spiritual impulse that sought to depict and ritualistically activate the magical powers and mysteries of nature. For millennia, the arts have played a key role in shaping culture, reflecting the changing ideals of beauty, truth, and power and inspiring creativity and innovations. It was, therefore, imperative to dedicate a bridge in spacetime to an Art Exhibition followed by a Roundtable at the EUROTAS Creative Bridges Conference 2024 at Oxford University. This bridge, a transpersonal space, is where the individual connects with the collective, the personal with the universal, and the mundane with the spiritual.

THE ART BRIDGE

A group of creative women from the Alef Trust community responded to the call and stepped on the transpersonal bridge connecting art and heart, the one with the many, the partial with the whole, the inner and the outer worlds. They brought their energy and spiritual vision onto the bridge and hung their static and moving visions around it. These were conceived as more than pieces of printed or painted paper but as imprints of their bodies and psyches, living images, communicating through various mediums and aesthetic languages.

THE ROUNDTABLE

The art bridge was stirred by a spark, and during the Roundtable, it was reached by a wave that is now flowing in spirals all around it. The artworks, like shells on a beach, tell endless stories about the world. Moreover, they also turned out to be distinctively feminine, reflecting the unique perspectives and experiences of the women artists. This topic, which we have begun discussing in the Roundtable, will continue to be explored in our forthcoming podcasts/webinars (stay tuned).

CURATOR’S STATEMENT

As the curator of the exhibition, I wore a dress designed to remember the avant-garde artist, custom, sets, and fashion designer Alexandra Exter (1882- 1949), who worked with futuristic ideas and modern materials. The dress was a statement about the enduring power of women artists and visionaries, who tend to be erased from records and removed from the central stage of culture. Yet, like an evolving archetype, they resurface and continue to inspire the collective memory and imagination of future generations.

THE ARTISTS & ARTWORKS

Inna Dulerayn

Inna Dulerayn, theatre director, writer, filmmaker, producer and performance artist, introduced her production Mythosphere first premiered in the Stone Nest Theatre in London. Mythosphere was inspired by the Surrealist movement, whose members were in the quest for the ‘marvellous, which “was impossible without a woman”. During the creative process of Mytosphere, Inna Duleray made Leonora Carrington her teacher and drew from the writings of Diana Wynne Jones, who coined the term “mythosphere.”

Rainbow Goddess

Rainbow Goddess displayed her menstrual drawings which were made during her MSc research and formed a part of the experiential and embodied aspects of her dissertation. The drawings supported by academic research contribute to the Menstrual Art movement, which commenced in the 1970s and has remained relevant. Her menstrual pieces attracted the interest of conference delegates involved in childbirth and women’s mental and physical health.

Dr Reginna Hess

Dr Regina Hess, Visionary Founder/Director of Birthing an Ancient Future; Chair of the EUROTAS Department of Transpersonal Research, Vice-President of the European Transpersonal Psychology Association, and Alef Trust faculty, displayed the Visual Poetry Kintsugi Installation.

Dr. Regina U Hess, who created her unique form of Kinstugi in her art installation, vividly describes it:

“The ZigZag golden thread represents the Tsunami wave, the thin shinning golden thread represents life with its vulnerability and preciousness, and the golden tape connecting the different layers of experiences and creative expressions represents the cycle of life—death—rebirth—as a wave of life and death—eternal and infinite – tapped together in a Kintsugi sacred way of restoring regeneration within the wheel of life of existence.

Such a perspective places embodied understanding on a nondual spectrum intertwined with art, culture, spirituality, nature, and the cosmos”.

Nana Zang

Nana Zang displayed abstract spiritual paintings made during her pilgrimage and stay in Kailash, the Saint mountains in 2022. Her work reminded us that we were all on a pilgrimage. After trials and tribulations, moments of joy and ecstasy, we arrived at the exhibition’s bridge and unpacked the artworks, intending to share spiritual and transpersonal visions.

Maria Prieto

The sense of oneness was displayed by Maria Prieto through a collage consisting of numerous images that denote and express communitas.

Embodiment & Immersion

Zang and Prieto’s artworks were not just to be observed, but to be experienced. They invited visitors to come closer, to use their entire body and senses, and to be fully present in the space. The large menstrual drawings of the Rainbow Goddess were particularly daring, encouraging a deep and immersive experience.

Dr Lila Moore

Some people were intrigued by the blue circles at the centre of the exhibition poster (see featured image). They appeared to them like an eye, maybe the eye of a camera, or both. I used the ancient Egyptian colour scale to create it and, in my talk, compared my activity as an artist filmmaker to Isis mending Osiris, restoring psychospiritual wholeness.

When visitors to the exhibition pointed their camera phones at the tech-noetic prints, they generated short ritualistic texts and screen dances. Cameras and screens within screens, like mirror dances, open the doors of perception to the transpersonal infinite. Mindfully holding the camera to generate an imaginal vision somewhere and nowhere between the body, Self, and the print is akin to an ancient experience of magic.

Resonances of Communitas: Roundtable and Beyond 

The Roundtable was initiated and chaired by tech-noetic artist, screen choreographer, and visionary theorist Dr. Lila Moore, a lecturer and dissertation supervisor for the Alef Trust. It featured the unique and diverse perspectives of Alef Trust’s alumni, each bringing their rich experiences and insights to the table. Mary-Rita McGuire, MSc, founder of MYSTERYM; Rainbow Goddess, MSc, PhD candidate, and theatre director and filmmaker Inna Dulerayn, all contributed to a dynamic and thought-provoking discussion that enriched and enlightened the audience.

Due to the open format, the discussion focused on the transpersonal from a feminine creative perspective, allowing often invisible and unspoken subject matters to emerge and be voiced. We discovered a shared feminine foundation for our various vocations and visions—a foundation we wish to unravel further and develop through deeper and more extended conversations. As women of different generations, we have felt the gap that needs to be bridged through the feminine, while the historical setting of Oxford University served as the perfect backdrop for this creative call to reflection and action.

Thus, we are committed to continuing these conversations with further roundtable discussions that bridge the arts, the transpersonal, the feminine, and beyond. We invite you to be part of this ongoing journey. We are deeply grateful to the Alef Trust, Eurotas, and the global community of visionary seekers and trailblazers, and we look forward to these inspiring dialogues.

Lila Moore Member since August 28, 2020

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Dr Lila Moore holds a practice-based PhD in Dance on Screen from Middlesex University (2001), UK, in the context of experimental film, dance, modern and contemporary art, multimedia and cyber performance with special reference to myth, ritual, women’s spirituality and movement therapy through imaginal images and archetypes. The PhD was based on her M.Phil in film/video and dance (1997) and MA in Independent Film and Video (1989) from Central Saint Martins in London. Her Postdoc at the Planetary Collegium of Plymouth University (2015) entitled The Cybernetic Futures Institute, explored networked-digital-interactive forms of performance and narrative, fields of noetic and compassionate consciousness, and the innovative formulation and intersection of advanced technologies, spirituality and technoetic aesthetics to counteract the dominant narrative of violence. Dr Moore is a UK-certified Professional Life Coach and Counsellor practising Jungian, creative, embodied and technoetic holistic/transpersonal methodologies. Lila Moore is a lecturer and dissertation supervisor at the Alef Trust. She teaches on the Transpersonal Psychology Module as well as the Option course Spirituality and the Imaginal as part of the Spiritual Psychology Module. She was a lecturer at the Department for the Study of Mysticism and Spirituality at Zefat Academic College until its closure (2013-2022) and received the Outstanding Lecturer Award in 2022 in recognition of her dedicated and excellent work. Dr Moore co-chairs the Spirituality and the Arts Special Interest Group of the International Network for the Study of Spirituality. She is an editorial board member of both S/he – An International Journal of Goddess Studies and the Alef Trust’s Consciousness, Spirituality & Transpersonal Psychology journal. She regularly presents papers in academic conferences, produces academic writings, and serves as a reviewer for EVA London Conferences. As an international artist and theorist, Lila Moore’s artworks and theoretical texts are archived by SIGGRAPH and ADA-Archive of Digital Art. She exhibits in juried and curated exhibitions as well as curates online exhibitions via Cybernetic Futures. For more information and updated contents visit her websites and subscribe to her newsletter: cyberneticinstitute.com Online exhibitions and films by Dr Lila Moore cyberneticfutures.com https://aleffield.org/my-profile/lila-moore

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