We wish and chance, for ourselves and each other

We wish and chance, for ourselves and each other. Through balance of knowing …
glass, soot from burnt handmade cotton paper, wishes, candle, and porcelain
Variable scale installation
2018 – present

We wish and chance, for ourselves and each other is an ongoing performance, installation, and socially engaged action artwork. Starting in 2018, the artwork continues each exhibition and performance action. An artist statement and description of the process can be found below.

We Wish Artist Statement:

Moments shared through this process are transformative for the wish, the wisher, and the facilitator of the wishing ritual. At times concluding in ambivalence, or in tears, in joy, or with embrace. The way we choose to shed walls and allow space for vulnerability allows for growth to occur. Wishes are not guaranteed to come true. But how can the truth of the manifestation of coming true can be understood in entirety? What can be known is that transformation, change, and growth will occur, regardless. How we choose to navigate our own wishes and share a place for the vulnerability to release hope into potentialities is both a solitary action and a communal activity. Our lives connect to other lives, our wishes to the wishes of others. The action of wishing, truly wishing, is transformation. From thought, through action, with hope into a wish. We commune together around the universal fire of the unknown, moment by moment, change is occurring. What potentials it brings is different for each of us as we gaze into the universal flame of possibilities from our own observational positions of self, while always being and affecting the whole.

We Wish Process:

Participants were asked to think of a wish and write it on the slip of paper provided. The wisher is then asked to conceal the wish by folding or rolling the paper. The facilitator of the wishing ceremony never reads or hears the wish. The following steps are then told to the wisher by the

facilitator.

1. Facilitator lights the candle and hands the candle to the wisher

2. Wisher uses the lit candle to light the wish paper, candle remains lit

3. Wisher places burning wish paper onto porcelain slab for transformation by fire

4. During the transformation of the wish the facilitator captures the abstracted image of the wish onto the glass. 5. Once the wish has been transformed to smoke to hopefully return as reality the wisher repeats the wish once to self and blows out the candle.