REST from Hilary White on Vimeo.
REST* is a multimedia installation investigating how traditionally, narratives displaying the interaction between physical and spiritual realms, were recreated in a communal setting as an opportunity to engage the audience in liminality. These liminal spaces served culturally as a mode of establishing, and reinforcing community through interactive narrative and celebration. REST utilizes both ritual, and celebratory aesthetic as a mode of developing communitas*.
The narration for REST is derived from the Biblical book of Revelations depicting the prophetic account of the regeneration of heaven and earth as an undivided locus, void of all systems of death. The narrative utilized in REST is emphasized through the visual stimuli of the rave format, referencing the ethereal through the electric body of psychedelic, and pop phenomena. Both the narrative, and the format present an invitation to engage in a celebratory setting, with a diverse population. This engagement may further the discussion of what a “new heaven and new earth” consist of regarding the individual enacting their version of this vision within community both spiritually, and/or physically.
* REST: Relational Expressions of Spiritual Transcendence;
*Communitas refers to anthropologist Victor Turner’s use of the term as an unstructured state (a departure from social constructs) in which all members of a community are equal, allowing them to share a common experience.
REST utilizes and promotes the community it is situated within. REST has partnered with the Gainesville Child Advocacy Center as a way to directly address and bring awareness to the needs within the community. The installation sites will be accepting wrapped juice box drinks and wrapped non perishable single serving snacks to be donated to the CAC for the children they work with. Please consider donating these food items at these events.
Featuring music performed by Ghost Fields, Black Galaxy Entertainment, and Enoch from the hip hop group CYNE.
Thank you to these collaborators who have made this installment of REST possible:
The International Fine Arts Fund/ Elestial Sound / The Child Advocacy Center of Alachua County
Musicians: Shara Lunon /Alexander Crook / JP Wright / DeVonderick Johnson
Performers: Senta Achee, Oliver Klicker
Sound: Dave Michael
Photography: Joshua Hobson