365 ATTEMPTS TO MEDITATE

Picture
31.01.2013 to 23.02.2013


365 attempts to meditate began as a year long challenge to maintain a meditation practice. After ten years of failure, I thought I could finally succeed at this awareness exercise by aligning my commitment to art practice with my lack of commitment to meditation. The balloon was employed tactically to locate the breath and to bring a sculptural and performative component to the act. At the outset the project stipulated an instruction –“meditate everyday”. By repeating the demanding ritual of meditation, an artwork could slowly develop, day-by-day, month-by-month. A serial practice ensued for the full calendar year of 2011. All went well in the first few weeks – I really did meditate. However, it wasn’t long before genuine meditation ceased and questions concerning the artwork took precedence. There were also days when I didn’t ‘meditate’. The blank images speak for the failed days when there was no time to breathe and thus no time to make anything – no time to make art. Stopping and disrupting whatever I was doing routinely a minute earlier, setting up the camera, picking a balloon, sitting in a chair, exhaling and inhaling constituted a performative intervention into everyday life. This interruption of everyday life became a method not for meditating but for making something. In retrospect, the project should be titled 365 attempts to make art and not 365 attempts to meditate



78A Campbell Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010  

[email protected]

+61 421 522 190 

Gallery Hours:

Thurs-Sat 1-5pm

Follow @PelotonSydney






Leave a Reply.