My good friend and interlocutor, Rodolfo Kronfle Chambers (see his Blog Río Revuelto) has been following my research and the making of The Journey of Maria Rosa Palacios for quite some time. He suggested I look at the work of Liou and Saadi.
Liou is showing Kora at the Sharjah Biennial 12 http://www.arthurliou.com/. “Kora is both a type of pilgrimage and a type of meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Kora is performed by making a walking circumambulation around a temple, stupa, or other sacred site. Kora many be performed while spinning prayer wheels, chanting mantra, counting mala, or repeatedly prostrating oneself. ” The video is meditative and eerie at the same time. I enjoyed how the low-angle of the camera captures the landscape and how the walkers along the route appear as apparitions. The work does suggest the altitude of the place and probably more importantly an other worldliness that is perhaps mystical or ascendent.
Saadi is showing “Al Zannoba Journey” at he Sharjah Biennial 12 Zannoba Journey. This series of works documents the artist’s journey on foot through mountain areas and villages in the east of United Arab Emirates. The rocks have been hand painted and appear as archeological artifacts that have been neatly organized as an anthropologist might. Saadi’s work focuses on cataloging and archiving. In this case I am presuming they are found rocks that he then added his own painting to. I like this impulse to collect found rocks on a performative journey and then alter the collection. The work sits in a gray area between actual collection through the simple act of walking and intervention. The paintings reference hieroglyphs and cave painting suggesting the impulse of humans to leave their mark.
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