At one point in life or another, and for a myriad of reasons, we have all felt vulnerable. The feeling may manifest itself in our bodies and thoughts in different ways and we have our own ways of reacting to it. Or not reacting. I think one way of expressing this vulnerability is that it may feel like you stand before something or someone without any protection, almost like being without skin. And that we can feel the need for some kind of extra skin to wrap around us for warmth, comfort, protection, support...

If you were to make such a symbolic skin - what would it look like?

This blog is dedicated to my project Symbolic Skin. Here, I will present contributions to the project, blog abot it's process and my thoughts around it's theme. Fuller information can be found on the pages above. Feel welcome to join in, read, comment and discuss!

Project Background

The idea for Symbolic Skin slowly emerged from a number of thoughts and desires I have:

  • Humanity is a unity. We all are interconnected and are part of a larger whole. As human beings we share a deep belonging, and we all have to face and struggle with a number of existential themes such as the fact that we are all going to die, that being human means not being perfect, and that there is injustice in the world etcetera.
  • Every human is an entire universe in her-/himself: infinite, unique and wonderful. We all have something special to contribute with to the unity which is humanity, and we all have an undisputable value.
  • To create is an important part of being human. Creating gives us an opportunity to be free, creative, develop our emotional life as well as our thoughts, helps us process and communicate events, feelings and thoughts, and gives us access to a language which doesn’t have to be foremost intellectual and pragmatic.
  • Art has an important role to play in society. It can put us in contact with the existential and spiritual dimensions in life. It can help us observe and reflect on the complexity of our existence. It also helps us communicate about difficult things. It can mirror, criticise, support and develop society and its’ citizens.
 
Out of these thoughts, four wishes grew that have shaped this project.:

  • I wish to gather a mixture of people in a shared work of art showing how we all belong together and how we, through our unique personality can contribute to something which is larger than ourselves.
  • I want to show that art is free for all. It is for the artists, the grandmothers, children, uncles – everyone. To experience and to exercise.
  • I wish to spread artisitc creation and the meeting with the arts to as many people as possible and inspire more people to dare create. I also want to show how one can use artistic creation to express oneself about matters that may feel difficult and can be hard to express in words.
  • I want to take a subject, an experience, which may be difficult and/or challenging and show that by creating a work of art one can make something wonderful out of it.
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