Where does the creative act come from? Is it connected to something larger than ourselves, something that transcends our daily lives?

The questions have been posed, and in curating “Sacred Texts/Contemporary Forms: Spiritual Traditions in the Digital Age,” Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design Liberal Arts professor Leslie Fedorchuk attempts to answer them by examining something that has stirred humankind since the beginning: the search for, and negotiation with, the sacred using texts that are extraordinarily diverse.

The premise of the MIAD exhibit — how artist have, and continue to, reveal sacred texts in many ways and across faith traditions — is explored through representations from many belief systems, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Baha’ism, Hmong shamanism, Islam, Judaism, Maya and Wicca.

With 70 works interpreted by 30 artists working with digital and traditional media, the viewer is invited to ‘bear witness’ to the journey of the text,” says Fedorchuk. “This journey is one of history, of the solitary work of the artists and, finally, of a personal response.”

From hand-calligraphy, to etching, to digitally produced imagery, the exhibit includes a full spectrum of materials and production methods.

“What connects all of these things is the examination of the ideas in the texts - of the words that have been challenging us for centuries - from whatever faith tradition we come from,” she says. “How these are interpreted, revered and questioned as we move through time is of interest to me here.”

Fedorchuk spent a year traveling and exploring native pictographs in Canada and the southwest U.S., totem-poles in the northwest states and British Columbia and museums across the country, returning with a vast understanding of the spiritual tradition in the digital age.

Her exhibit includes penned books in an indigenous Spanish dialect by a shaman from Chiapas, Mexico, feather “books” by an Ojibwa from St. Ignace, Michigan — which she says are more sculptural object than traditional books — as well as an introduction to the book as an interactive in a variety of ways, including for ancient texts — “Sultan Baybars’Qur’an,” the “Golden Haggadah,” the “Lindesfarne Gospel” and the “Diamond Sutra,” which was printed in China in 686 — that viewers can manipulate on a kiosk.

“They are texts that are actually online at the British Library,” says Fedorchuk. “They use a program called ‘Turning the Page”‘that allows the viewer to page through the text, magnify portions of the page and listen to audio that describes what it is you are looking at. What I think will be particularly interesting in terms of the exhibit, however, is that we will have these books on large monitors in the gallery. The opportunity to look at the ancient texts alongside the more contemporary work will be quite out of the ordinary.”

There are three panel discussions connected with the exhibit held on three Wednesdays in February. Feb. 7 is a discussion of the contemporary books in the exhibit. Two of the artists, Elsi Vassdel Ellis from Washington and LynneAvandenka from Detroit will be there. The Feb. 14 discussion talks about the texts themselves and the participants will speak from the perspectives of the different traditions. The last panel considers books (and other forms of information) in a digital age, thinking about archiving and storing information — what changes are taking place and how we deal with those changes.

Source: OnMilwaukee.com

Mariama Alidu was cast out as a witch from her village by her own family, yet she swears she has never cast a spell.The mere suspicion of witchcraft was enough to see her and 80 other suspected witches expelled to a scruffy camp of mud huts on the fringes of the town of Gambaga in northern Ghana.

“It is the work of the devil. I can’t say I have ever practised it myself,” says Mariama, who has lived in the camp for about 10 years.

Hundreds more women accused of witchcraft live in similar camps in the cocoa- and gold-producing West African country.

Belief in witchcraft remains widespread in Africa, the world’s poorest continent, where Christianity and Islam rub shoulders with animist religions, and where witch doctors wield great power in tribal societies.

In the poor, dry savannah of northern Ghana, the heat shimmers under a pale blue sky and allegations of witchcraft bubble up as readily as tar in the tropical heat.

Like the witches’ trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 or the Cold War persecution of alleged communists in 1950s America, the fate of a suspect often hangs on the word of another.

Death, illness, dreams, superstition or even visible signs of success may be enough to provoke accusations of sorcery.

No matter how hard the allegation is to prove — or how hysterical the accuser — the fact that witchcraft is virtually impossible to disprove means many women are forced to live outside their communities, some for as long as 30 years.

Some are brought to the witch camps by their families. Others flee there from their homes and villages, fearing a beating or worse. Most of the occupants of the camps are women, although there are some men.

Human rights campaigners say camp populations are declining, thanks to efforts by concerned agencies to reintegrate the women into society and fight the influence of witchcraft.

“People are becoming better aware that these issues are not just metaphysical but also a human rights issue,” said Richard Quayson, deputy commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ghana’s leading human rights organisation.

“People don’t tend to attack those who leave the camp and go back into society,” he added.

Malign forces
Yet a belief in malign spiritual forces remains strong in Ghana, especially in poor rural areas, and some say the camps will exist for many years to come.

Mariama Alidu’s own brother accused her of witchcraft, following an argument over her daughter’s choice of fiance.

When his own daughter fell ill, he blamed his sister and Mariama was taken to the Gambaga witch camp. At first, she thought she was just going on a trip. Only when she arrived did she realise where she was and what was happening.

Gambaga’s local chief, who lives in a larger mud hut than the others, requests money from visitors interested in meeting him and talking to the witches.

“In the olden days, when our forefathers were not yet born, when someone was suspected of being a witch, the fellow was killed. It is to eliminate this act of killing, that is why they are in the camp here,” he said through an interpreter.

“If you have a witch in your community, you feel the witch is disturbing you. We can keep them here.”

The chief said the “witches” worked the fields with his wives, and in return he gave them food and shelter. Many also lived on charitable donations.

Price of success
For many of these outcast women, their crime may be a quarrel with a daughter-in-law or simply that they have passed child-bearing age.

In places where medical knowledge is scarce, illness is also often seen as having a spiritual or malignant cause.

Even an elderly woman’s appearance in a dream can be taken as a sign of her malevolent intent.

In some cases, witchcraft offers an easy explanation as to why one person is successful and another is not.

“In cases where successful women, brilliant women, have gone beyond the confines of their status as women, witchcraft is used as an explanation,” said Dr Abraham Akrong, of the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies.

His own mother, a successful businesswoman, feared buying land in case people attributed her success to witchcraft.

Ironically, the rise in Ghana of charismatic Christian churches, with their focus on the fight against evil, has intensified fear and belief in witchcraft, even among educated people, Akrong said.

For Alidu, the hut she shares with two others is likely to remain her home until her family is willing to take her back.

Over the years, she has visited her children, who do not believe she is a witch. Too old to work on the chief’s farm, she relies on food brought to her by other residents.

Asked if she is angry with the brother who cast her out, she said: “We were born of the same woman. I don’t understand why he should accuse me of being a witch when our mother wasn’t a witch.” - Reuters

Source: Mail & Guardian Online