- Venue
- Leo Baeck College Library
- Starts
- Thursday, June 20, 2019
- Ends
- Wednesday, July 31, 2019
- Address
- 80 East End Road N32SY
- Location
- London
- Organiser
- L. Roberts
PV: 20 June 6-8PM. To RSVP to the PV or to make a viewing appointment, please write to: [email protected]
Aramaic Incantation Bowls were used in Babylon between the third and seventh centuries to ward off demons and protect homes. Buried in the ground underneath homes, and inscribed with quotes from Jewish texts, the bowls were considered to have powerful, miraculous effects. In this exhibition, inspired by books in the Leo Baeck College Library collection which look at incantation bowls, ancient Jewish magic, and amulets, the artists use print and ceramics to investigate the power of mantra in altering mind states and the power of personal, playful practice to transform reality. The medium of print emphasizes repetition and mantra – each print pulled mirroring the one before, yet slightly different, like repeating the same line again and again. The mantras are the kinds of lines you’d hear at a yoga class, from your local Rabbi, or in your favourite self-help book. Both satirical and playful, serious and profound, the prints and bowls emerge from a new age era where we all dress up as witches and magicians and tell our own stories about it. Thinking we are in charge of our destiny, thinking we can change the world, thinking the same thought again and again, and at the centre is something unknown, something unattainable and ungraspable – nothing, really.
