Canticles
Paint, Farsi letters, Fountain, Mirror, Posters, Handwritten text, Post-its, 5000 Handmade glass tear drops, Table, Table clot with text burned into the fabric, 100 Lights, Computer control board; 17’H x 30’W x 40’L
Canticles is a multi-sensory exploration of mystical experience, expressed through five installations—Search, Union, Awakening, Longing, and Discovery—and two performances, Ecstasy and Offering. Each work reflects a state along the spiritual path, drawing inspiration from Sufi and Christian mystics.
In Search, Farsi calligraphy painted in flowing blue washes transformed the museum’s foyer and mezzanine into a meditation on longing and reflection, accompanied by poetry and mirrored imagery. Union assembled hundreds of handwritten love poems on blue post-its, forming wave-like patterns suggestive of the ocean’s embrace. Longing filled an azure room with 5,000 glass teardrops and a table inscribed with Mechthild of Magdeburg’s ecstatic verses. Awakeningused choreographed light to simulate the rhythm of illumination and darkness.
The performances extended the installation beyond the gallery: Ecstasy, a spatial sound piece with three cellists playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 as a round in the Mission Church, and Offering, a temporary outdoor text composed of birdseed spelling out lines from Saint Francis’s Canticle of the Brother Sun, slowly returned to nature through the act of feeding.
Together, these works trace the mystical journey from searching to dissolution—an invitation to experience presence, transience, and transformation.