Madness + Hope is a series of conversations with artists, makers, and creators about spirituality and artistic practice.
Madness + Hope seeks to:
1. make visible the connections between belief, spirit, and the work that we do;
between our interior lives and the world around us.
2. to encourage the internal and external dialogues with ourselves and with others that would catalyze meaningful work in our lives.
Art is, after all, a contemplation of mortality and our attempted manifestations of consciousness and spirit. It is easy to fixate on the routines, habits, and behaviors that we believe will produce the end-product we desire. What is seen and tangible seems to be within our grasp and control, yet in the process, we often neglect the unseen: our emotional landscapes, the invisible world, our extraordinary spirits.
These conversations do not desire to glorify the individuals featured in them, but rather to bring light to the honest and difficult questions we ask ourselves in our pursuit of art, in the ordinary existence of our lives. These conversations do desire connection, vulnerability, and authenticity. They are intimate and intentional glimpses into people’s minds, hearts, and spirits; meditations on ways of being, ways of seeing, ways of moving through the world, ways of responding to an awareness of our existence.
For some, art is the only way to make sense of our existence; for others, art is a searching unto itself; or an outpouring that flows from discovery; or a way of awakening our interior lives. Whatever the mode of existence, human experience is rich and complex, as are the frameworks of belief that guide them. An awareness of that complexity guides these conversations about art and spirituality.
Let these conversations be explorations and meditations unto themselves that seek to unravel and upend the pace, rhythm, and structure of our lives.
Please contact nso [at] post [dot] harvard [dot] edu if interested in participating.
