COMMISSIONED WORKS
Mind the Heart! Project creates art pieces as gentle, tangible triggers in public spaces.
The works are created to facilitate contemplation and to serve as entry points into deeper awareness - both spatial and internal.
While many of the creations are done independently, throughout the years we've created numerous commissioned works,
indoors and outdoors, for varied partners. Our commissions are site-specific, designed through dialogue with our partner
and correspond not only to the characteristics of the space but also to core values of the organization to which it belongs.
Here are some examples:
Wishing Wall, Georgia Highlands College, Cartersville, USA, 2023
"That which can unravel them, also grants them wings."
The flock of birds rises as one, encompassing a duality: a tension between the pulling force of the ground and the endless promise of the open sky.
Our history, our roots, our triumphs and our losses, can all be sources of great strength or chains that hold us back.
But the birds and their ‘chains’ are made of the same, soft material. That which can unravel them, also grants them wings.
If they choose to fly high enough for long enough, they will unravel the tangle and get all the thread they need. If they so choose, they’ll be free.
The mural also deals with hopes and fears and how these can be shared to find connection and transcendence.
In this, the power of intention and of the written word shines brightest - both personally and communally.
In October 2023, GHC students and faculty in Rome and Cartersville were asked to answer this question: Of all of your skills, gifts, and superpowers, what's the one you'd want to shine through this coming year, so that others may benefit from it?
The birds now carry their answers upwards, to fulfillment.
Mantra, Core Dance Company, Decatur, USA, 2023
"let the beating ground push your feet not pull them"
Life is perceived through our personal lens - thus, reality is subjective and in being so, a shift in our perspective can alter worlds.
Mantra focuses the idea of the power of perspective into a single sentence, by playfully questioning how you relate to a given physical law.
Gravity grounds you. It gives you stability and the foundation for your highest reaching endeavors.
Gravity can also feel like a weight, a burden that pulls you down, limiting your abilities.
The work suggests a simple yet potent shift in perception: notice your footsteps and through them your relationship to the earth.
Can you allow this force that pulls you down to teach you about standing up? Can it anchor and elevate you at the same time?
It all comes down to what we make of it. Do we focus on the down-steps, seeing them as the inevitable descents from a doomed liftoff?
Or do we tip our lens, focus on the up-steps, and envision the ground pushing us each time we touch it?
Mantra suggests we use what grounds us to give us wings, that our dug-in roots be the source of our ever-expanding foliage.
This inherent dichotomy/duality is fundamental in making us whole.
Mantra echoes its predecessor, b.e.i.n.g, created by Mind the Heart! Project at this exact site in 2017. It, too, dealt with the power of choice
and encompassed a duality, a tension between the pulling force of the ground and the endless promise of the open sky.
b.e.i.n.g, Core Dance Company, Decatur, USA, 2017
"You become. You are. You develop a sense of self, you define your borders, you defend the land.
But it's only when you let others in and let yourself out, when you embrace the fear that is inherent in connection, it is only then that you can truly be".
Human connection is at the core of our being.
The word 'being' itself encapsulates a life cycle - You come into this world (be). You define your own self (be l). But it's only through connection,
through becoming a part of something bigger than yourself (be in), that you can truly be (being).
The Black Birds encompass a duality: a tension between the pulling force of the ground and the endless promise of the open sky.
Our history, our past, our roots can all be sources of great strength or chains that hold us back. But the birds and their 'chains' are made of the same, soft material. That which can unravel them, also grants them wings.
If they choose to fly high enough for long enough, they will unravel the tangle and get all the thread they need. If they so choose, they'll be free.
Lastly, the building or breaking down of a word (adding or subtracting the next letter) is a conceptual act that aims to strengthen or weaken an idea,
to bring something into or out of existence.
RISE! black birds, Israel National Museum, Jerusalem, Israel, 2016
Commissioned in 2016, this was the first and only time the museum showed street art on its outer walls.
The mural flew on the Jerusalem wind for two years, before taken down.
Be Here Now, Magdas Hotel, Vienna, Austria, 2019
Between earth and sky, between past and future, the fleeting present encompasses the only space where we truly exist.
And with each passing moment, now becomes past and future steps in to be the new now - bringing with it yet another opportunity to grow,
to evolve, to be.
This piece is dedicated, first, to the Magdas employees, gathered here from different roots and backgrounds to find a new present for themselves. Secondly, it is dedicated to the Magdas guests that come here to create their own moments and memories in wondrous Vienna, a city which manages
to combine the past, present and future so elegantly.
