https://visionlabcollective.com VISION LAB Mon, 26 Apr 2021 04:06:05 +0000 https://visionlabcollective.com en https://visionlabcollective.com/Main-Menu Sun, 29 Nov 2020 05:13:12 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Main-Menu Conference of the BirdsAbout WorkSupport / StoreContact https://visionlabcollective.com/Home Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:03:30 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Home <img width="1080" height="1496" width_o="1080" height_o="1496" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/72101b1103e6bb7d2e732dc210fc58797c2c39b6e6b1018309bd8681443adf18/134639981_1587242754996835_374479252881434219_n.jpg" data-mid="253122961" border="0" data-scale="50" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/72101b1103e6bb7d2e732dc210fc58797c2c39b6e6b1018309bd8681443adf18/134639981_1587242754996835_374479252881434219_n.jpg" /> https://visionlabcollective.com/Conference-of-the-Birds-contents Thu, 18 Mar 2021 20:45:17 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Conference-of-the-Birds-contents Welcome to the Conference of the Birds. Click on each project for more information. Valley of Questthe birds must cast aside all preconceived beliefs, dogmas, and doubts. ︎Conference of the Birds graphic novel Ava Salzman, Matthew Blumberg &amp; Kythe HellerCambridge, MA &amp; Philadelphia, PA, 2021 ︎Firebird (mattress under the overpass) video poem Kythe Heller, Grace Jackson, Andrew Stauffer, Nicholas Denton Protsack &amp; Lise King Philadelphia, PA; Cumbria, UK; Kelowna, BC; Provincetown, MA, 2021 ︎Dreaming the Phoenix lucid dreaming research project Eliza Yvette Esquivel, Tziporah Rebbeck &amp; Biliana Angelova New York, NY; Somerville, MA; Lexington, MA, 2021 Valley of Lovereason must be abandoned for the sake of love. ︎Firebird spoken text and flamenco dance video Kythe Heller, Anya Yermakova &amp; Marizó SillerPhiladelphia, PA; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; Woodside, CA, 2021 ︎Phoenix of the Sea soul song to whales &amp; interspecies communication Anneka Bowman &amp; Joshua Bowman Kapaau, HI, 2021 Valley of Knowledgeintellectual knowledge is revealed to be utterly useless. ︎Phoenix Conspires sound collage Andrew Stauffer Kelowna, BC, 2021 ︎Fire and Silk: An Arachnologist’s Homage experimental lecture Sarah Karikó Cambridge, MA, 2021 ︎Firebird Singingfilm Kythe Heller, Anya Yermakova &amp; Max Bowens Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL; Cambridge, MA, 2021 Valley of Detachmentall cravings and aversions for worldly things are left aside. Here, what is assumed to be “reality” vanishes. ︎In the Refuge of a Cavemusic composition Nicholas Denton Protsack Kelowna, BC, 2021 ︎QPublic: Crazymakinga prosocial conspiracy theory Erling Hope Long Island, NY, 2021 ︎Firebirda book of poetry Kythe Heller Philadelphia, PA, 2020 Valley of Unitythe birds intuit that everything is connected and the Simurgh is beyond everything, including harmony, multiplicity, and eternity.︎Phoenix woodblock prints &amp; graffiti Annie Silverman Somerville, MA, 2020-2021 ︎Murmurations video interviews Grace Jackson Cumbria, UK, 2021 ︎I Am You nascent social movement / sermon James Venable New Haven, CT, 2021 Valley of Bewildermententranced by the beauty of the Simurgh, the birds become perplexed, and, steeped in awe, find that they have never known or understood anything. ︎Firebird super8 film Marizó Siller, Farida Amar &amp; Kythe Heller Death Valley, CA, 2020 ︎In the Nave a conversation in soundscapes Fanny Howe &amp; Sue Schardt Cambridge, MA, 2021 ︎Mending a Crask in the Sky documentary film Roble Issa &amp; Zach Jama Toronto, BC, 2021 Valley of Annihilation and Rebirththe birds’ egoic selves dissolve, and the birds become timeless, existing in both the past and the future of every moment. ︎Firebird album of spoken voice and experimental music Kythe Heller, Andrew Stauffer &amp; Nicholas Denton Protsack Philadelphia, PA &amp; Kelowna, BC, 2021 ︎Story of Sati vaiṣṇava (वैष्णव ) discourse, meditation and tantric paintings Sahaj Kaur&nbsp; Groton, MA, 2021 ︎Gongperformance Dharam Singh Millis, MA, ∞ https://visionlabcollective.com/Conference-of-the-Birds Sun, 18 Apr 2021 04:37:42 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Conference-of-the-Birds CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS is a conceptual and actual journey of thirty birds in search of the mythological Phoenix, the enlightened human being. Inspired by the medieval Sufi allegory Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr (نطق الطیر‎), and the methods, practices, and ambitions of Islamic mysticism and American experimental art movements, this project foregrounds work that is both individually created and collaboratively tethered to other projects involved in a novel ecosystem of creative practice. Conference of the Birds reinvents the multi-layered medieval Sufi poetics of the original by creating a living, breathing version with similarly complex allegories and interconnections between projects and performers. Across poetry, film, music, visual art, installation, socially engaged practice, and new genres, this body of work was created online by the international experimental art and research collective Vision Lab over the course of this past year to address global pandemic, racial injustice, ecological crisis, and political malfeasance. Conference of the Birds engages a variety of techniques to enact&nbsp;human transformation and to invent new human futures and methods of regenerative possibility. Comprised of a core group of artists, poets, spiritual teachers, musicians, carpenters, filmmakers, scholars, activists, tech creatives, healers, yogis, futurists, entrepreneurs, scientists, and students, we range in age from nineteen to eighty, with members in diverse genres of creation, geographical location, ethnicity, gender, ability, and socio-economic situation. Our “identity” is continuous transformation. The original medieval text, entitled منطق الطیر‎, Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr, is a mystical poem by Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar, commonly known as Attar of Nishapur. The title is taken directly from the Qur’an, 27:16, where Sulayman (Solomon) and Dāwūd (David) are said to have been taught the language, or speech, of the birds (manṭiq al-ṭayr).&nbsp;The story: As their forest is destroyed by fire, all the birds of the world gather in a clearing to decide what to do. The Hoopoe, a bird mentioned in the Qur’an as King Solomon’s wise Messenger, suggests they journey to find the enlightened Simurgh, a mysterious bird who dwells on Mount Qaf, a mythical mountain that wraps around the world. At the start, each bird presents an elaborate excuse for avoiding the journey, but the Hoopoe addresses each of their many hesitations, complaints, fears, vanities, and questions. She then outlines the perils of the journey, describing the seven Valleys they must cross in order to reach the abode of the Simurgh. When the birds hear the description of these Valleys, they bow their heads in distress; some even die of fright right then and there. But despite their trepidations, they begin the great journey. On the way, many perish of thirst, heat, or illness, while others fall prey to wild beasts, panic, and violence. Finally, only thirty birds make it to the abode of the Simurgh. In the end, the birds learn that they themselves are the mysterious Simurgh, who offers its own shadow to manifest their lives with its every breath. The name “Simurgh,” in Persian, also means thirty [si] birds [morgh], which is not so much the name of the Phoenix-like divinity, but the reflection of whoever comes before it. The birds eventually come to understand that the Phoenix is like the sun that can be seen reflected in a mirror, beyond anything that can be seen directly. Yet, whoever looks into that mirror will behold who they truly are. [adapted from the beautiful translation of the Persian by Sholeh Wolpé] &nbsp; ︎ENTER https://visionlabcollective.com/Index-of-Work Tue, 26 Jan 2021 05:09:16 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Index-of-Work INDEX OF WORKClick on each project for more information. &gt; Conference of the Birds Produced by Kythe Heller, Andrew Stauffer, Anneka Bowman, Annie Silverman, Anya Yermakova, Ava Jinying Salzman, Biliana Angelova, Camiló Cienfuegos, Dharam Singh, @duouteri, Eliza Yvette Esquivel, Erling Hope, Fanny Howe, Farida Amar, George Trksak, Grace Jackson, Isaac Gertman, James Venable, Joshua Pa Bowman, Lise King, Marizó Siller, Matthew Blumberg, Max Bowens, Nicholas Denton Protsack, Roble Issa, Sahaj Kaur, Sarah Karikó, Sue Schardt, Tziporah Rebbeck, Zacharia Jama online festival of 1-year pandemic project Cambridge, MA, 2020-2021 ︎Divination and Digital Narratives Emilie Hardman &amp; Kythe Heller workshop MIT Experimental CollectionsCambridge, MA, 2020 ︎Recordar | to pass through the heartKythe Heller, Ariana Reines, Matthew Blumberg, Biliana Angelova, Annie Silverman, Michelle Bentsman, Tim Wojcik, Dharam Singh, Adam Horowitz, Matthew Battles, Andrew Stauffer &amp; Arlinda Shtuniperformance Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Cambridge, MA, 2019 &gt; Saluting the Beauties Karlene Griffiths Sekou, Jovonna Jones, Butana Molefe, Azmera Davis, Kythe Heller, Andrew Stauffer &amp; Michelle Bentsman performance Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Cambridge, MA, 2019 &gt; Divination by Starlight Kythe Heller, Ganavya Doraiswamy, Matthew Blumberg, Michelle Bentsman, Andrew Stauffer, Biliana Angelova, Tim Wojcik, Matthew Battles, Ashley Clements, Annie Silverman &amp; Cecile Guedon performance Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Cambridge, MA, 2019 &gt; Dream Hacking and SkyDance Kythe Heller, Adam Horowitz &amp; Januar Ciel conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 &gt; Ghosts &amp; Machines: Science and Technology in Spiritual Practice Kythe Heller, Ganavya Doraiswamy, William Powers, Aden Van Noppen &amp; Umang Kumar conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 &gt; Inside Out / Outside In: Social and Environmental Justice and Spiritual Practice Kythe Heller, Prathima Muniyappa, Zain Alam, Tim Gallati&nbsp; &amp; Greer Simpkins conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 &gt; Living Mysticism: Practices of Body and Spirit&nbsp; Kythe Heller, Saima Alvi, Ashley Clements, Anya Yermakova &amp; Tajay Bongsa conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 &gt; Words Beyond Borders: Writing Radical Love Kythe Heller, Matthew Battles, Kieren Kresevic, Devi Lockwood &amp; Nadia Colburn conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 &gt; Socially Engaged Arts and Spirituality Kythe Heller, Lise King, Mallory Nezam &amp; Jonathan (J.B.) Fields conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 &gt; Day-long Exploratory Retreat Kythe Heller, Annie Silverman, Ben Korta, Alen Agaronov, Karlene Griffiths Sekou &amp; Chew Lin Kay conference &amp; workshops Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, MA, 2018 https://visionlabcollective.com/About-Vision-Lab Tue, 26 Jan 2021 04:57:44 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/About-Vision-Lab Vision Lab is an experiment in living the future now. We are researchers of the sacred; a laboratory of ecstatics; intersectional, far-sighted argonauts of the 22nd century. We titrate the latent promise of the human being, as an (im)possble love opens its eyes within us. We genuinely like each other. Our research engages only the most unrealistic objectives, without dismantling the apparatus of intellect or incisive aesthetic curiosity. We hypothesize enlightenment, social justice, friendship, presence, mystery, joy, collectivity, environmental symbiosis. We see the “other” as we see ourselves [there is no other, nor is there a self!]. We feel at home with the bewildered annihilation of prophets, with mystics, prisoners, many-eyed spiders. Our membership is a vessel of vast proportions and includes you and me: the moony, woolgathering accountants and iridescent entrepreneurs, airplane pilot abuse survivors and sail-surfing mothers, the dead and the living, the lost and the found, and all who live in between. We offer the beginner’s mind of the future, a mind that sees without seeing, from the visionary eye of the heart within the heart in our bodies, that shines like a resplendent laboratory in the night forever. At Vision Lab, we create artistic and literary works, performances, research collaborations, and other innovative spaces of engagement. Vision Lab engages a variety of techniques in order to manifest an experience of human transformation spanning the areas of contemporary spirituality, social and environmental justice, science and technology, and literary and artistic practice. Founded by Kythe Heller at Harvard Divinity School in 2017, Vision Lab now includes an ever expanding core group of artists, poets, spiritual teachers, musicians, filmmakers, scholars, activists, tech creatives, healers, yogis, futurists, entrepreneurs, scientists, and students. We range in age from nineteen to eighty, with members in diverse genres of creation, geographical location, ethnicity, gender, ability, and socio-economic situation. Our “identity” is continous transformation. OK, but really, what is Vision Lab? Vision Lab is an international art and research collective, founded at Harvard Divinity School in 2017 and currently an independent initiative. We create artistic and literary works, performances, scholarly research projects, and other innovative spaces of engagement combining radically imaginative cross-disciplinary conversations and experiential practices spanning the areas of contemporary spirituality, social and environmental justice, technology, and literary and artistic practice. We have created and presented our work through public performances and workshops, residencies, conferences, and experiential retreats, in residence at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and MIT’s Experimental Collections. Click here to find out more about our past work. Throughout the pandemic, Vision Lab met online with a global membership and created a large-scale online arts festival and installation called Conference of the Birds, on the theme of creative and regenerative possibility and symbolized by the mythological phoenix. We’re currently inviting new members and offering programs, collaborative ideas, and possibilities for 2026 and beyond. Conference of the Birds Contributing Artists: Andrew Stauffer Anneka BowmanAnnie Silverman Anya Yermakova&nbsp;Ava Jinying Salzman Biliana Angelova Camiló Cienfuegos Dharam Singh@duouteri Eliza Yvette Esquivel Erling Hope Fanny Howe Farida Amar George Trksak Grace Jackson Isaac Gertman James VenableJoshua Pa Bowman Kythe HellerLise King Marizó Siller Matthew BlumbergMax Bowens Nicholas Denton ProtsackRoble Issa Sahaj KaurSarah Karikó Sue Schardt Tziporah Rebbeck Zacharia Jama https://visionlabcollective.com/Offerings-and-Contact Tue, 26 Jan 2021 04:58:10 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Offerings-and-Contact VISION LAB A space for inquiry at the intersection of art, spirituality, and thought. (scroll down for membership options) Vision Lab is not a lecture series, a conference, or a platform. It is something harder to name and, we think, rarer: a sustained space where global artistic practice, spiritual life, and scholarship are brought into genuine relation, and where the conditions are created for work that actually matters to take form in the world. What began through conversations at Harvard Divinity School has grown into an international collective of more than 100 artists, researchers, scholars, and contemplative practitioners, united less by discipline or institution than by a shared orientation toward depth, experimentation, and the kind of attention that takes time. What this looks like in practice: an artist-scholar from the Philippines developing healing performances in response to ecological precarity and historical trauma; a researcher in Southern Europe working with local communities around one of the continent's last free-flowing rivers; others developing projects around care ecologies, more-than-human belonging, sacred art practices, and artistic responses to climate grief. These efforts do not develop in isolation. They take shape in relation to one another, sustained by honest feedback, continuity, and the presence of a community that keeps returning. For many participants, that sustained presence is not supplementary to the work. It is what makes the work possible. We are living in a moment of profound cultural fragmentation, when the inherited forms for thinking, making, and practicing together are no longer adequate to what we are facing. Artists, scholars, and contemplatives are often doing the most necessary work of reimagining those forms — and doing it alone, without the conditions that allow the work to deepen and connect. Vision Lab is an attempt to change that: to create, carefully and experimentally, a space in which that work can flourish, and from which something genuinely new might emerge. What Vision Lab isVision Lab is an experimental laboratory for the future of the human spirit. It brings artists, scholars, and contemplative practitioners into ongoing relation to cultivate a field in which transformative work can unfold. The aim is not simply to present finished ideas, but to open process—to think from within practice, and to remain with questions as they take form. What happens inside a session We begin with a brief meditative arrival. Each session is structured around two carefully curated presentations by leading artists, contemplative practitioners, and scholars, often held in deliberate contrast—different disciplines, methods, or ways of knowing brought into relation. From there, a sustained, facilitated conversation unfolds---a shared vocabulary, a set of live questions, a deeper capacity for attention. What you receive Two 90-minute sessions each month&nbsp; Two curated, juxtaposed presentations by leading artists, contemplative practitioners, and academics per session Meditative opening and facilitated discussion Access to recordingsOne open conversation hour&nbsp; Thoughtful reflections, questions, creative prompts, and suggested readings Small constellation groups for more sustained exchange A growing international network of artists, scholars, and contemplatives This is a space to develop work and thought in relation, over time. Who this is for Vision Lab may resonate if you: Have been part of Vision Lab or Harvard Divinity School’s PES Program or related conversations and are seeking continuity and collaboration Work across artistic, scholarly, or contemplative domains Are interested in questions that resist immediate resolution Are looking for a space that allows both rigor and openness Feel the need for a slower, more sustained mode of inquiry If this feels aligned, you are very welcome to join. “It feels like a continuation of conversations I didn’t want to end—only now with more depth and time and support for my actual work to become realized and have impact in the world.” “There’s a rare balance here: intellectual seriousness without performance, openness without loss of rigor.” “I find myself thinking differently after each session—not because answers are given, but because the questions become sharper. There’s also joy and a sense of hope and awakening possibility in this community. I’ve met artists from all over the world and everyone makes me feel welcome.” Current CycleThe next Vision Lab salon cycle begins: Open (free) introductory meeting Sunday, November 1, 5-6 pm EST November Salon Series:Sunday, November 8 · 5:00–6:30 p.m. ET with Eliza Esquivel &amp; Denise Gieseke Sunday, November 15 506 p.m. ET (open hour) Sunday, November 22&nbsp; 5:00--6:30 p.m. ET with David Rothenberg &amp; Prathima Muniyappa Participation is intentionally limited (~35 participants) to preserve depth and dialogue. Membership Vision Lab is a member-supported space.&nbsp;We’ve shaped a simple membership structure to support the continuation of this work. $75 / month — Sustaining Most members join at the Sustaining level ($75/month), which helps make the space possible—supporting presenter honoraria, holding the gatherings, and sustaining the underlying infrastructure and behind-the-scenes care that allow Vision Lab to exist. This level also directly funds scholarships, extending participation to those who could not otherwise join. $45 / month — Community For those who need a lower cost option. Full access to all Vision Lab offerings. $120 / month — Supporting For those who want to help stabilize something genuinely rare — an independent, experimental community shaped not by institutional funding, but by the people who believe in what it is becoming. A small number of no-questions-asked sliding scale and full scholarships are always available. Please write to kytheheller@visionlabcollective.com. Membership renews automatically and can be paused or canceled at any time by writing to me directly. Special Opportunity Dream Incubation Studio December 26-December 31 Our special, immersive Dream Incubation Studio is&nbsp;December 26-December 31, 2026, with a focus on Mysticism, Apophatic Thought, and Creative Practice. A small 7-session creative and contemplative intensive for artists, scholars, writers, and practitioners inquiring into the relations among mysticism, apophatic thought, dreams, imagination, creative practice, and inner transformation. Please contact kytheheller@visionlabcollective.com for more information and to apply.&nbsp; Current Vision Lab member $350 Non-Vision Lab member $400 (includes complimentary 1-month Vision Lab membership) Vision Lab Supporter $700 (supports scholarship recipients)A small number of sliding scale and scholarship openings are always available. Please write to kytheheller@visionlabcollective.com. Vision Lab Compensation Policy (Pilot Phase)During its pilot phase, Vision Lab’s salons and core programming will feature presenters drawn entirely from within the Vision Lab community. Honoraria during this period are therefore structured as internal, co-creative compensation, combining modest cash payments ($100) with membership benefits that support continuity, reciprocity, and shared investment in the Lab’s growth. While Vision Lab is currently operating as an independent, experimental initiative, we hold that curated artistic, scholarly, and contemplative labor deserves real compensation, even at an early stage. Honoraria are scaled to the format, preparation involved, and current financial capacity of the Lab, and are offered with transparency about pilot-phase economics. Vision Lab does not rely on unpaid labor for core programming and is committed to increasing compensation and expanding presenter eligibility beyond the community as resources grow, while maintaining dignity, care, and sustainability at the center of our practices.Contact informationVision Labwww.visionlabcollective.comkytheheller@visionlabcollective.com https://visionlabcollective.com/Divination-and-Digital-Narratives Mon, 26 Apr 2021 02:41:28 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Divination-and-Digital-Narratives <img width="1240" height="508" width_o="1240" height_o="508" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d25f780668e1796a56481f4681d1046567721eaba1c41d9a939765bfb910b04f/tarot-cards-FTR.jpg" data-mid="106426829" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d25f780668e1796a56481f4681d1046567721eaba1c41d9a939765bfb910b04f/tarot-cards-FTR.jpg" /> Divination and Digital Narratives Workshop at MIT Experimental Collections on Tarot Divination Cambridge, MA, 2020 Emilie Hardman, Curator of Strange and Interesting Things at MIT, and Kythe Heller, a session of thought with MIT’s extensive collection of medieval, modern, and contemporary interpretations of the Tarot deck. Divination practices, from astrology to zygomancy, have been durable social and cultural engagements from the beginning of human history. Such practices and their attendant tools have shown no sign of abating either; in fact, recent years perhaps even point to a resurgence of interest and engagement. The drive to ask questions, to seek guidance and advice, to build stories and narrative frameworks may be deeply fed through such practices. Divination&nbsp;need not be considered within occult frameworks, nor indeed should it be considered solely an attempt to determine the future; these practices are social rituals and narrative-generating activities that actively create opportunities for self-reflection and exploration in personal and public contexts. As such, they offer new modes for working with users to create and share immersive and interactive narratives. Within digital and immersive environments we are particularly interested in how working with chance-based systems such as tarot can create opportunities for story building, performative practices, art-making and public empathy generation that holds space for diverse users to experience a sense of their own agencies, to play with temporality and dis/identification, and to practice resistance or resilience. With&nbsp;projects focused on exploration and use of divinatory practices that involve artificial intelligence and virtual reality, this panel will explore the resonance and phenomenology of divination in interactive digital platforms, film, games, and writing. <img width="479" height="479" width_o="479" height_o="479" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ceea7fdd94e7dfdf7724d3b4ee8a576c0d02391ebdfbd090ac7a462e1ebb0590/avatar.jpg" data-mid="106422751" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/479/i/ceea7fdd94e7dfdf7724d3b4ee8a576c0d02391ebdfbd090ac7a462e1ebb0590/avatar.jpg" /> Emilie Hardman is head of the Distinctive Collections department at MIT Libraries. Distinctive Collections comprises the Aga Khan Documentation Center, the MIT Institute Archives, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Visual Collections, and the Wunsch Conservation Lab. The department collects, preserves, and fosters the use of unique and rare materials such as tangible and digital archives, manuscripts, ephemera, artists’ books, and more.&nbsp; <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/11291e6668faf1dadd8ba1109f8aff1d4b3763de1c8db852cd4f271ff5b070c0/kythe-h.jpg" data-mid="106422393" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/11291e6668faf1dadd8ba1109f8aff1d4b3763de1c8db852cd4f271ff5b070c0/kythe-h.jpg" /> Kythe Heller is a poet, multimedia artist, and scholar whose work re-imagines art-making as a practice of consciousness: In what ways can our work become sites of evolution, realizations of new social, technological, and ecological relationships, by considering how to use language and media to radically change our ways of being in the world? She is author of the poetry collection Firebird (Arrowsmith), two chapbooks, critical studies in philosophy of religion and poetics published by Cambridge UP and Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics, and essays and poems. Her performance and multimedia work has been staged at the Harvard Film Studies Center, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, SEEDS Festival, Sonoma State University, WAXworks (NYC), BAX (NYC), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and elsewhere. Currently she is completing a doctorate at Harvard University in Comparative Religion and Art, Film, and Visual Studies/ Critical Media Practice. She founded VISION LAB in 2017. https://visionlabcollective.com/Recordar Mon, 26 Apr 2021 02:55:51 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Recordar <img width="2000" height="1200" width_o="2000" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/716d30d39a6e14ffc79700ef52a54a93e2d7943b46afa0104efdbb01185d807e/ghostheart-03.jpg" data-mid="106426140" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/716d30d39a6e14ffc79700ef52a54a93e2d7943b46afa0104efdbb01185d807e/ghostheart-03.jpg" /> (above) Decellularized Ghost Heart by&nbsp;Doris Taylor Recordar | to pass through the heart Commissioned performance at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for the Radcliffe Gallery Series, in conversation with exhibition by Dario Robleto, Silent and Solitary Seas Cambridge, MA, 2019 This performance by VISION LAB will take as its starting point not "the human heart," but rather your own human heart, creatively repurposing Harvard's archive of earliest waveform recordings of blood flowing from the heart (1874-1896) with contemporary interventions and interactive media. We invite you to participate in investigating what is alive within you, through dream hacking, testimony of medical experience, movement arts, Cardiospermum halicacabum, an introduction to The Night Journey of mystical Islam, the question of whether the heart can lie to itself, poetry, percussion compositions, crickets, interactive sensors and visualizations of cardio data, critiques of Eurocentric understanding of “the pulse,” and intimate conversations with you about all of this and more. <img width="1024" height="768" width_o="1024" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/af8cfabed2232e6a2aab92e0396f8d7ec48fa10226bc5e33f80235f575934c9d/Dario-Robleto-image.jpg" data-mid="106426771" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/af8cfabed2232e6a2aab92e0396f8d7ec48fa10226bc5e33f80235f575934c9d/Dario-Robleto-image.jpg" /> VISION LAB is an experimental arts and research collective attuned to the future of spirituality in the human and more-than human world. We are based at Harvard Divinity School and create performances, artistic works in a variety of media, conferences, and collaborations combining radically imaginative cross-disciplinary conversations and experiential practices spanning the areas of social and environmental justice, technology, and literary and artistic practice. <img width="1512" height="1130" width_o="1512" height_o="1130" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8314c39426764f91351503e00938a983c97e494f0c69038dadf0b9ae962c2d97/Screen-Shot-2019-12-17-at-5.23.30-PM.png" data-mid="106424141" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8314c39426764f91351503e00938a983c97e494f0c69038dadf0b9ae962c2d97/Screen-Shot-2019-12-17-at-5.23.30-PM.png" /> <img width="2352" height="1387" width_o="2352" height_o="1387" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0f5651711cb03e3de057ff0cb0517ff31729da6bb32a38ff254a9fc2d2245f4c/Screen-Shot-2019-12-17-at-1.52.35-PM.png" data-mid="106424462" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0f5651711cb03e3de057ff0cb0517ff31729da6bb32a38ff254a9fc2d2245f4c/Screen-Shot-2019-12-17-at-1.52.35-PM.png" /> <img width="1704" height="1132" width_o="1704" height_o="1132" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba353aba309f7466141b4b700958c11435292d4e856a8ab1f285e030f5b93965/Screen-Shot-2019-12-17-at-5.29.26-PM.png" data-mid="106424142" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ba353aba309f7466141b4b700958c11435292d4e856a8ab1f285e030f5b93965/Screen-Shot-2019-12-17-at-5.29.26-PM.png" /> We have been asking questions, such as: What kinds of new knowledges might we develop and share collectively in our art-making, writing, scholarship, and social practices? How can form be re-invented or re-considered in ways that remake conventional frameworks of meaning, and how can this re-making address and transform our contemporary sense of political, social, spiritual, and ecological crisis? How is it possible to transform and heal ourselves and our ways of life, to attune ourselves to each other and our fragile planet? <img width="2000" height="1333" width_o="2000" height_o="1333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a1369f675e8b4a929ece423024a11296d14109d9c3a27727fbcff75e75ceffd2/RECORDAR15.jpg" data-mid="106426281" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a1369f675e8b4a929ece423024a11296d14109d9c3a27727fbcff75e75ceffd2/RECORDAR15.jpg" /> These are some of the questions which we have been pursuing collectively since founding VISION LAB&nbsp;in late fall 2017, through public workshops, residencies, presentations, collaborations of art and literary work, and experiential retreats, held last year in&nbsp;Vision&nbsp;Lab’s residence at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, this past year through performative engagements with the Radcliffe Gallery Series, and next year in upcoming partnerships with other Harvard and MIT Institutes and the larger Boston arts community. We are currently growing and open to new members and collaborative ideas and venues for 2019/20; anyone receiving this email (or resonating with these ideas) is welcome to participate. <img width="1124" height="1937" width_o="1124" height_o="1937" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ab981b196cd88c6fab00687c576c796d95b0bc291a01fc3a32fc8e858a47773b/IMG_0584.jpg" data-mid="106426307" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ab981b196cd88c6fab00687c576c796d95b0bc291a01fc3a32fc8e858a47773b/IMG_0584.jpg" /> <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cc0ba4e4f8d07020c2d994b3b3e2ef9ec25d0dd518faa54889771f38a5015e43/Matthew-Battles-copy.jpg" data-mid="106424794" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/cc0ba4e4f8d07020c2d994b3b3e2ef9ec25d0dd518faa54889771f38a5015e43/Matthew-Battles-copy.jpg" /> Matthew Battles; writer, artist, and director, Harvard MetaLab; technology and arts practice. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f0ddbef782f3c365243588c16f205347ca73ac15bfa6f6023996058e5ad490be/dharam-s.jpg" data-mid="106423374" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/f0ddbef782f3c365243588c16f205347ca73ac15bfa6f6023996058e5ad490be/dharam-s.jpg" /> Dharam Singh: gong traveler, shepherd to the un-gonged.....Dharam came up freer than many, on Freeman St - an environment where there was no escaping rhythm - drumming and the chants of Africa via Caribbean immigrants echoed through the canyons of the South Bronx, the birthplace of both Salsa (Cuban and Puerto Rican music with a NY attitude) and Hip Hop. At the age of 20 in Alaska he first experienced the healing power of Kundalini Yoga. That same year he would also meet, study and live with Rolling Thunder (Shoshone-Cherokee Shaman) and have an audience with the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa. Through some early and fantastic mind-washings Dharam would witness extended glimpses of perfect being that would inform everything from that point forward.&nbsp;His passion for life and community has found a place in the healing art and sacred science of the Gong as a tool for vibrational transformation and has taught the technology of Gong Yoga here in the US and in South America. Having walked the path of Sikh Dharma with Yogi Bhajan, for 42 years he has come to more fully understand that sound and energy is the essence of the order of everything and that if a person can find peace and wellness through simply laying down, relaxing and listening, then who is he to deny them, what he himself considers a refuge. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/98678ba3964e2f56b2f64f8358b529d3f8de15195ded75514875260dce01871d/Ariana-Reines-copy.jpg" data-mid="106424790" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/98678ba3964e2f56b2f64f8358b529d3f8de15195ded75514875260dce01871d/Ariana-Reines-copy.jpg" /> Ariana Reines is a poet and Obie-winning playwright.&nbsp; Her newest book is A Sand Book, longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award. Program Note: I'll share a new poem inspired by shades of T.S. Eliot, the heartbeat's link to iambic pentameter, and betrayal. https://www.arianareines.net/ <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/64a81aaa7c2e58cba36c0eb090dbb4b262f7141614b0f2f57be2eaa40d870e76/Michelle-Bentsman-copy.jpg" data-mid="106424795" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/64a81aaa7c2e58cba36c0eb090dbb4b262f7141614b0f2f57be2eaa40d870e76/Michelle-Bentsman-copy.jpg" /> Michelle Bentsman is a movement artist and doctoral student in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. She studies Gaga, Haitian dance, West African dance,&nbsp;and Butoh in the Boston area. Michelle has performed at the&nbsp;Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, mobius, JCC Manhattan, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her scholarship focuses on cross-cultural healing songs, plant medicine,&nbsp;end-of-life care,&nbsp;and ritual performance. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d716fe5a55dbbaa7fff7b000b59357b9e3658ac1e0583efe6120ae7ccbe5ab93/biliana-a.jpg" data-mid="106423367" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/d716fe5a55dbbaa7fff7b000b59357b9e3658ac1e0583efe6120ae7ccbe5ab93/biliana-a.jpg" /> Biliana Angelova, M.A, MEd, RYT 200 is a certified Kundalini Yoga instructor, psychotherapist and yoga therapist, with expertise in yoga, mindfulness, and meditation research. Biliana is devoted to building a community of yoga practitioners and helping people of all experience to transcend all manner of dis-ease through the healing technology of Kundalini Yoga. She serves both the general public and varied patient populations in Boston and San Diego. Her heartsong is her 17 year-old-son. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6ae32b86504fa6355f7f7b4cddf25bdb1677f5f4bf97b4cb54a72bbc36b2584e/Matthew-Blumberg2.jpg" data-mid="106426270" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/6ae32b86504fa6355f7f7b4cddf25bdb1677f5f4bf97b4cb54a72bbc36b2584e/Matthew-Blumberg2.jpg" /> Matthew Blumberg is interested in how systems think: cells, bodies, minds, societies, ecosystems, and (maybe) computers.&nbsp; He also likes to make stuff up.&nbsp; Visiting Fellow, Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH). <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a8448442921c01e92855a3ecd1cfbf7abb5e7584d1f3b966e23187055be998ff/Tim-Wojcik.jpg" data-mid="106425976" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/a8448442921c01e92855a3ecd1cfbf7abb5e7584d1f3b966e23187055be998ff/Tim-Wojcik.jpg" /> Tim Wojcik is a media artist whose work attempts to capture the bits of beauty in everything. He is inspired by the natural and constructed world and learns from contemplative practices and the eternal. Tim is a part-time faculty member at the University of Rhode Island and manages film postproduction at Emerson College. For this collaboration, he captures the pulse of the participants and audience so that our collective heartbeats can be shared. <img width="556" height="556" width_o="556" height_o="556" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3bc250c8c932af29d12441e7d4653803c040f24fc8b94140cec18c6675698f19/Adam-Haar-Headshot.png" data-mid="106425782" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/556/i/3bc250c8c932af29d12441e7d4653803c040f24fc8b94140cec18c6675698f19/Adam-Haar-Headshot.png" /> Adam Haar is an interstitial imp in between neuroscience and experiential art. His work aims to expand possibilities for introspection. Currently a PhD student at MIT, Adam comes from work in brain research on mindfulness and is now focusing on the mechanisms of dreams. Adam’s art/science work has been shown at Cannes, SXSW, the Boston MFA and here and there. Current projects include dystopian emotion spas, microscopic adventures inside the human body, and dream control and capture in the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep. His heartsong is an intergenerational matriarchy, woven together. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a40e9ef5c0ae085809658af88a41b4777f3ff37cdcd8fcf10dc45c564483f8cd/annie-s.jpg" data-mid="106423349" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/a40e9ef5c0ae085809658af88a41b4777f3ff37cdcd8fcf10dc45c564483f8cd/annie-s.jpg" /> Annie Silverman is a visual artist working mainly with woodcut printmaking techniques. She is the proprietor of ABRAZOS PRESS, a teaching and professional print shop in Somerville ,MA, and also an avid, urban gardener. Annie has participated in&nbsp; the VISION LAB since its inception . Her prints and artist books have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and are in the collections of the Boston Public Library and the Boston Athenaeum. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a72cff9aa8bc9f1735bcf2c7d6da8aa21cfcb22c733b7ca67e5192a8afb38c1e/Arlinda-Shtuni-copy.jpg" data-mid="106424793" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/a72cff9aa8bc9f1735bcf2c7d6da8aa21cfcb22c733b7ca67e5192a8afb38c1e/Arlinda-Shtuni-copy.jpg" /> Arlinda Shtuni is a Boston-based curator, writer and editor. She believes real discoveries happen in in-between spaces or the margins of disciplines. She practices across mediums, acting as&nbsp;editor, writer, video producer, and curator of a salon series that periodically brings together visual artists, scientists, and writers to investigate germane topics such as our encounters with digital technology, the shifting boundary between the public and the private and others. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/16888af76369d4b84b66eb14c35e298b2fa2f5e5735353d7586320d16037c6f2/andrew-s.jpg" data-mid="106423348" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/16888af76369d4b84b66eb14c35e298b2fa2f5e5735353d7586320d16037c6f2/andrew-s.jpg" /> Andrew Stauffer is a musician, sound artist, and HDS alumnus based in the Okanagan, British Columbia. My creative process for RECRORDAR involved exploring animistic understandings of objects in the world and different ways of translating and interpreting information. I am interested in how spirit or life force can be shared, expressed, or transferred to and from both people and objects.&nbsp;For my recordings, I looked specifically at Robleto’s waveforms of perfect mental repose and religious guilt. I wanted to explore the waveforms not as two-dimensional representations of pulse, but as three-dimensional lines that are followed through time. My recordings aim to capture not only the underlying pulse of each waveform but the smooth, shimmering movement of Robleto’s mysterious sculptures themselves. How does Bertino’s pulse/ life force/spirit transfer from him to waveforms to Robleto’s sculptures, and eventually to my recordings inspired by the waveforms? What, if anything, is transferred? What is gained and what is lost? <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/11291e6668faf1dadd8ba1109f8aff1d4b3763de1c8db852cd4f271ff5b070c0/kythe-h.jpg" data-mid="106423127" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/11291e6668faf1dadd8ba1109f8aff1d4b3763de1c8db852cd4f271ff5b070c0/kythe-h.jpg" /> Kythe Heller is a poet, essayist, performer, filmmaker, and doctoral student in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University, with a secondary field through Visual and Environmental Studies/Social Anthropology in Critical Arts and Media Practice. Her creative practice and research resonate with a matrix of philosophical, aesthetic, and theological sources, in which traditional wisdom and meditative traditions intersect with poetry, performance, documentary film, and ethnography and are shaped by the dynamic interface of subjectivity and language – the wound and the word --&nbsp; and inquire into the incarnational and the transformational. In what ways can our writings become sites of evolution, sites of resistance, parts of an array of realizing new social and ecological relationships by considering how to use language to radically change our way of being in the world? She is author of the two poetry collections, The Book of Fire and Immolation and is a recipient of grants and fellowships from Harvard University, The MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Laurels Foundation/PSU. Recent film and multimedia work has been presented at the Harvard Film Studies Center, SEEDS Festival/ Earthdance, Sonoma State University, WAXworks (NYC), BAX (NYC), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and in various collaborations and street performances in NYC and elsewhere. She has taught contemporary poetics, religion, literature, arts and media courses at Harvard University, Sarah Lawrence College, Bard Prison Initiative, and Hofstra University, as well as in the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. kytheheller.com. https://visionlabcollective.com/Saluting-the-Beauties Mon, 26 Apr 2021 04:06:05 +0000 VISION LAB https://visionlabcollective.com/Saluting-the-Beauties <img width="3696" height="2028" width_o="3696" height_o="2028" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/25ed6f0d9c6a13107a5b4bbb87e99abdac10bfd55da0ae21b2593d2087332a2a/Screen-Shot-2021-04-25-at-9.12.15-PM.png" data-mid="106427043" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/25ed6f0d9c6a13107a5b4bbb87e99abdac10bfd55da0ae21b2593d2087332a2a/Screen-Shot-2021-04-25-at-9.12.15-PM.png" /> (above)&nbsp;Five Beauties Rising&nbsp;by&nbsp;Willie Cole Saluting the Beauties Commissioned performance at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for the Radcliffe Gallery Series, in conversation with exhibition by Willie Cole Cambridge, MA, 2019 Vision Lab presents ”Unbounded: A Salute to the Beauties,” in conversation with sculptor Willie Cole’s “Beauties,” which specifically invokes black women, mothers and mothers dispossessed, from his great-grandmother’s generation: Anna Mae, Calpurnia, Queen, and Saphire are four of the twenty-eight prints. Black women have long been subject to yield to the submission demanded by law, the incursions of dominant touch. Cole’s series renders material the violence of this touch. He hammers ironing boards against the earth to thin the objects to a width of four centimeters. Cole and an ensemble of printmakers then ink the nearly pulverized, thin-shouldered forms and run them through the press. Vision Lab&nbsp; features guest curator Karlene Griffiths Sekou and artists Azmera Hammouri-Davis, capoeira and poetry artist, and co-founder of Break the Box; Butana Molefe, a South African drummer and vocal artist, Kythe Heller, Michelle Bentsman, and Andrew Staffer, and special interview with Jovonna Jones, historian and theorist of race, aesthetics, and culture in the United States, who describes her role as being committed to black space wherever we find and create it. <img width="1519" height="1010" width_o="1519" height_o="1010" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1f38711c82271da78000d5c9b9b31646727463632b37a264d9274629c760b209/Willie-Cole-Vision-Lab-performance2.jpg" data-mid="106427283" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1f38711c82271da78000d5c9b9b31646727463632b37a264d9274629c760b209/Willie-Cole-Vision-Lab-performance2.jpg" /><img width="1523" height="1014" width_o="1523" height_o="1014" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/386813552d8cb9ff84d1f97f53a8d847ed744a25dffd31bd0891deca0df3ede1/32679679067_882433d93b_k-1.jpg" data-mid="106427242" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/386813552d8cb9ff84d1f97f53a8d847ed744a25dffd31bd0891deca0df3ede1/32679679067_882433d93b_k-1.jpg" /><img width="2048" height="1365" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6ffc46e0240f10160ebce2916eaf9ec31b85d8b6508d4920eee845fa2533b2d2/47622372711_90ca7c2356_k.jpg" data-mid="106427247" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6ffc46e0240f10160ebce2916eaf9ec31b85d8b6508d4920eee845fa2533b2d2/47622372711_90ca7c2356_k.jpg" /><img width="1522" height="1013" width_o="1522" height_o="1013" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4027db06a5f00f20ae9032a7d0c38496887ac7b4dc052fbfd205d76732b37c16/Willie-Cole-Vision-Lab-Performance.jpg" data-mid="106427248" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4027db06a5f00f20ae9032a7d0c38496887ac7b4dc052fbfd205d76732b37c16/Willie-Cole-Vision-Lab-Performance.jpg" /> <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2c3db7c620aa3251ab38306987cd29c1f0eaa9ddcc34191b79871839399c37be/Karlene-Griffiths-Sekou.jpg" data-mid="106428196" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/2c3db7c620aa3251ab38306987cd29c1f0eaa9ddcc34191b79871839399c37be/Karlene-Griffiths-Sekou.jpg" /> Rev. Karlene Griffiths Sekou is an international public speaker, preacher, scholar, and has over twenty-years of experience working in grassroots community organizing and development, human rights advocacy, health equity, and cultural regeneration. Her experiences as a public and international health professional includes senior level program administration, HIV and AIDS prevention, women’s health, design and diffusion of effective behavioral interventions, youth engagement, maternal and child health, and international program development. Ms. Griffiths Sekou currently provides Consultancy to organizations committed to creating internal and external cultures of justice and equity using a framework of cultural regeneration, and training and facilitation in organizational ethics. She holds an MPH from Boston University School of Public Health, an MTS from Vanderbilt Divinity School, an MDIV from Harvard Divinity School, and is currently a PhD student in Religion, Gender, and Culture at Harvard University. Her research intersects gender, ritual, performance aesthetics, and political identity formation through and within social movements. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c1bba19240432a37e4b1035b1efda66284a18a9dcd99e894bb4346a1b1c63bcc/Azmera-Hammouri-Davis.jpg" data-mid="106428052" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/c1bba19240432a37e4b1035b1efda66284a18a9dcd99e894bb4346a1b1c63bcc/Azmera-Hammouri-Davis.jpg" /> Azmera Hammouri-Davis, MTS was appointed Africana Spirituality Advisor in September 2020. In this role, Azmera offers mentorship and guidance to students of African descent, supporting socio-emotional and spiritual needs and connecting them with resources that nourish their curiosity around Black spiritual life on campus. You can schedule with her by following this link to her Calendly. Prior to Tufts, Hammouri-Davis worked in higher education for eight years, beginning as a residential advisor for the Center for Black Culture and Student Affairs at the University of Southern California(USC) and continuing as a Director of summer residential programs for underrepresented and low-income students through the SMASH program at UC Berkeley before arriving at Harvard. While completing her Master of Theological Studies focused on African/American religions, she served as a Diversity and Explorations Assistant with Harvard Divinity School and Race Relations proctor for the Dean of Students First-year Experience office.&nbsp;Hammouri-Davis received a B.A. in Visual and Performing Arts Critical Studies and B.A. in Social Sciences Psychology from the University of Southern California. When she was seven years old her mother introduced her to the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira and ever since her life has been dedicated to Afro-Diasporic cultural education for liberation. She was awarded a Fulbright Creative and Performing Arts research fellowship in 2017-2018 where she studied the Afro-indigenous origins of Capoeira in its birthplace -- Salvador Bahia, Brazil and attended the Federal University of Bahia. Fluent in portuguese Azmera provides pastoral care among grass-roots organizations around the world through translation, embodied storytelling and non-violent communication workshops and classes. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9c1aed556d2018f98e6fe3b83d36ffa5189c8daa024c437470a6ff99448bc49b/Jovonna-Jones.jpg" data-mid="106428053" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/9c1aed556d2018f98e6fe3b83d36ffa5189c8daa024c437470a6ff99448bc49b/Jovonna-Jones.jpg" /> Jovonna Jones is a PhD candidate in African &amp; African American Studies at Harvard University, with a secondary field in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her research interests include social and cultural history, African American art and cultural production, visual studies, ethics and aesthetics, and feminist theory and criticism. Jovonna’s dissertation traces the historical and imagined presence of black women within American urban housing discourses of the mid-20th century, from federal policy to visual culture. She has served as a teaching fellow for courses on African American history, black radical movement, and race, gender, and performance. Jovonna is an incoming graduate fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, where she will be working on her dissertation for the 2020-2021 year.&nbsp;In addition to research and teaching, Jovonna works at the intersection of archives, public pedagogy, and art institutions. She has held graduate internships and fellowships at The Morgan Library and Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Harvard Art Museums. From 2019-2020, she facilitated The Black Studies Reading Room: monthly public study sessions on Black art, literature, and thought, held at Tufts University Art Galleries and Trident Booksellers &amp; Café in Boston, MA.&nbsp;Jovonna holds a B.A. in African American Studies from Emory University, where she was Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e26569130f72532165bfa26b6bebedf5b195254474eb214583834d1a5591a014/Butana-Molefe.jpg" data-mid="106428117" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/e26569130f72532165bfa26b6bebedf5b195254474eb214583834d1a5591a014/Butana-Molefe.jpg" /> Butana Molefe I was born in Soweto at the height of apartheid, at a tender age, I became aware and sensitive of the needs of marginalized and neglected communities. I am inspired by positive change. I strive to create and nature spaces of dialogue, where people from diverse backgrounds can find common understanding. Through years of training I have cultivated capacity to draw on people's experiences and facilitate processes that assist those individuals realize their urgency and involvement in finding possible solutions for their societal ills. Never retreat to a simple answer or explanation, yet comfortable dealing with ambiguity. My involvement and fascination with community based organizations, and their social involvement have taught me skills for deep analysis which allow me to be a scholar for life. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/468300659ff3bc05298dd9258e7bbb09272addfa5e8b8955c358c359b7c87522/kythe-h.jpg" data-mid="106428677" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/468300659ff3bc05298dd9258e7bbb09272addfa5e8b8955c358c359b7c87522/kythe-h.jpg" /> Kythe Heller is a poet, essayist, performer, filmmaker, and doctoral student in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University, with a secondary field through Visual and Environmental Studies/Social Anthropology in Critical Arts and Media Practice. Her creative practice and research resonate with a matrix of philosophical, aesthetic, and theological sources, in which traditional wisdom and meditative traditions intersect with poetry, performance, documentary film, and ethnography and are shaped by the dynamic interface of subjectivity and language – the wound and the word --&nbsp; and inquire into the incarnational and the transformational. In what ways can our writings become sites of evolution, sites of resistance, parts of an array of realizing new social and ecological relationships by considering how to use language to radically change our way of being in the world? She is author of the two poetry collections, The Book of Fire and Immolation and is a recipient of grants and fellowships from Harvard University, The MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Laurels Foundation/PSU. Recent film and multimedia work has been presented at the Harvard Film Studies Center, SEEDS Festival/ Earthdance, Sonoma State University, WAXworks (NYC), BAX (NYC), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and in various collaborations and street performances in NYC and elsewhere. She has taught contemporary poetics, religion, literature, arts and media courses at Harvard University, Sarah Lawrence College, Bard Prison Initiative, and Hofstra University, as well as in the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. kytheheller.com. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8e308c067bc97d7164b12e4b85d2ae4c41185a519e56ae84b93c2fcd08ce932b/Michelle-Bentsman.jpg" data-mid="106428405" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/8e308c067bc97d7164b12e4b85d2ae4c41185a519e56ae84b93c2fcd08ce932b/Michelle-Bentsman.jpg" /> Michelle Bentsman is a movement artist and doctoral student in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. She studies Gaga, Haitian dance, West African dance, and Butoh in the Boston area. Michelle has performed at the&nbsp;Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, mobius, JCC Manhattan, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her scholarship focuses on cross-cultural healing songs, plant medicine,&nbsp;end-of-life care,&nbsp;and ritual performance. <img width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0b27202aa1e050af7b60c5019d1f74479c41cf935a9ce00e7f6ee5c25e99fbcc/andrew-s.jpg" data-mid="106428325" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/0b27202aa1e050af7b60c5019d1f74479c41cf935a9ce00e7f6ee5c25e99fbcc/andrew-s.jpg" /> Andrew Stauffer is a musician, sound artist, and HDS alumnus based in the Okanagan, British Columbia. My creative process for RECRORDAR involved exploring animistic understandings of objects in the world and different ways of translating and interpreting information. I am interested in how spirit or life force can be shared, expressed, or transferred to and from both people and objects. For my recordings, I looked specifically at Robleto’s waveforms of perfect mental repose and religious guilt. I wanted to explore the waveforms not as two-dimensional representations of pulse, but as three-dimensional lines that are followed through time. My recordings aim to capture not only the underlying pulse of each waveform but the smooth, shimmering movement of Robleto’s mysterious sculptures themselves. How does Bertino’s pulse/ life force/spirit transfer from him to waveforms to Robleto’s sculptures, and eventually to my recordings inspired by the waveforms? What, if anything, is transferred? What is gained and what is lost?