Whispering Pines

  • Category

    Curatorial Projects

  • Year

    2009

  • Type

    Solo Exhibition

  • Artist

    Shana Moulton

  • Location

    Broadcast Gallery, DIT, Dublin, IE.

  • Role

    Curator

I’ve been so exhausted lately.  I’m tired following the routines and obligations of every day life.  I’m jaded with the order of things.  These days are so mundane and dull.  I think I‘ve begun to develop wrist tendonitis.  I need to a break – I need to retire from the world and gain some clarity.

Those cassettes you borrowed haven’t helped at all?  You really should commit to focusing on all that is wonderful within and around you.  Take special notice of all the blessings in your life – the sky, the trees, good friends, good food, a compliment, a helping hand, or whatever riches are put before you!

Nothing is working.  Not the cassettes, not the books.  Not even this new dietary regime.

Then I advise you visit Whispering Pines.  It’s a particolored, hypnotic refuge from the reality you find so exhausting.  It’s an enchanted haven of naive consumption and insulated security.  It’s the zone in which your quest for deeper meaning and higher purpose can truly begin.

So happiness will find me in Whispering Pines?

Most certainly! Once you equip yourself with the appropriate totems, you will be secure on your journey to self improvement.  Just take a look at Cynthia – she already lives there. Like a mystical knight in armor, Cynthia makes her surroundings serene with instruments of new faith. Dreamcatchers and illuminated indoor fountains, healing crystals and plasma lamps transform her residence into a soothing environment that resonates with the sounds of nature while keeping her cocooned from the outside world.

Wow!  But, wait… why does Cynthia need protection?  There seem to be no signs of threat in Whispering Pines.  Like a fairy story, it doesn’t connect to the fears of today:  there‘s no climate change, no terrorism, no financial crisis.

The fantastic universe Cynthia inhabits is almost no different from that in which the rest of us live.  But she’s learnt the valuable lesson that happiness and contentment are an inside job.  Thaumaturgy lies within the trinkets upon her shelf.  She punctuates her solitary days with enigma and mystery, lulling herself with esoteric theories and rituals, and considering in depth the possibility that she may possess the Second Sight.  The outside world is as dangerous for Cynthia as it is for you or I.  After all, that is where she lost her cat.

I understand.  Cynthia loves animals.  And a recreative escape has got to include a bonding to nature.  I mean, don’t the elements have a healing effect all their own?

Yes they do, and Cynthia finds healing properties in the merging of rudimentary forces of nature like water, earth, animal, body. Every day for Cynthia brings a new process of metamorphosis. Sometimes she becomes so enraptured by otherworldly energy that she just has to dance!  It is in these spells of entranced ecstasy that Cynthia succeeds in gaining insight into the true nature of things.

I can see that there is much that is familiar to me in Cynthia’s videotape but still, there are moments that make me feel uncomfortable.  Her world seems unreal, like the thin-walled and ephemeral setting for a TV soap.  When she dances, Cynthia disintegrates into psychedelic colours – even her interior decor possesses an independent life of its own.  Most confusing of all is the disconnection between what I see and what I hear.  It seems Cynthia’s world is deconstructed.

Right, but temporary disorientation is a small price to pay for a transcendental experience that itself is imbued with the powers to heal and enhance Mind, Body and Soul.  In Whispering Pines you will experience an epiphany that will show you how to recognize the Nirvana behind every door. You will be immersed in the kaleidosopic spectacle of a Magic Eye realm with rhythms to revive you.  You will be equipped with all the tools you need to create satisfaction, including explanations of the meanings of colours, and manuals for success and Palmistry.  Charlatanry does not exist in Whispering Pines, and the Age of Aquarius – now more affordable than ever before – will bring you infinite intelligence and change your life forever.  Move past your fears to a world where there is only only joyful visuality.  Just remember:  SAY YES TO THE UNIVERSE! LIFE IS HUGE!

-Text by Katharina Guenther, 2009