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‘A Time for New Dreams’ by Grace Bonner is an exhibition currently being shown at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London.

“Themes of mysticism and ritual permeate Wales Bonner’s exhibition, which explores magical resonances within black cultural and aesthetic practices. Taking its title from Ben Okri’s volume of essays, A Time for New Dreams (2011), which in many ways is a proposition for how to live and dream, the exhibition focuses on the shrine as a symbolic pathway for imagining different worlds and possibilities. Over the course of one month, a multi-sensory assemblage of site-specific installations and shrines, as well as a series of happenings, invite contemplation and activate the gallery. Interested in the improvisations and uses of shrines throughout black histories, Wales Bonner views these spiritual structures as material portals into multiple frames of experience. Drawing upon the images and rhythms of rituals and ceremonies from all over the world, and on her rigorous research across multiple geographies and temporalities, she moves across time and space by bringing these references into dialogue.”

I found this to be excitingly relevant to my project and found some parallels to the research I have already gathered. I am most definitely going to visit the exhibition, but have not had the opportunity to as of yet. Despite this I have gained a lot of insight through the prospectus and imagery I have found online about the exhibition. Below I will explain some of the things I have found particularly relevant so far.

‘Music, magic and myth are assembled and disassembled throughout the exhibition, drawing upon a vast array of reference points in order to consider how spirituality can exist outside of definable faiths and how ritual manifests through artistic praxis.’

This sums up what I was exploring in terms of Thomas Lannigan-Shmidts work – the way spirituality can exist outside of definable faiths and how ritual is spawned through art – in this case – the shrine.

‘The shrine bends the truth of the world into the truth of the spirit §’

‘the c r o s s r o a d s, the threshold to another world. Kongo worshipers make the tombs of their ancestors into altars, using a cross-in-a-circle pattern m i r r o r i n g the passage of the sun to signify the cycle of life and chart the i m m o r t a l j ou r n e y of t h e s o u l [‡]’

The description of a shrine being a crossroad, a THRESHOLD to another world – this explains perfectly the connections we try to forge through shrines, wether to the future or past or another world. It makes me think again of the shrine building happening after suffering, loss or grief. Times where are spirit is shaken and weak we try to reconnect with something to find strength again. It conjures images in my mind of a window or a door to another world – the shrine is a gateway to something normally unreachable. This could possibly be adapted in my final piece, a shrine as a window or a door – a gate?

The exhibition also features poetry from Ben Okri, a Nigerian poet and novelist. This is the poem that features, it is called

INVOCATION FOR THE SHRINE.

Everything here is kind of true.
The true magic is the magic of you.
The world is the shrine
And the shrine is the world.
Listen here to the revelations
Of Saint Time.
Still your hearts
And breathe like new.
Center yourselves
In the part of you that’s most true.
Every cell of your body
Is alive with vitality
Every thought in your heart
Helps shape reality.
We’re shaping a new reality today
The way you shape a new shrine
With the offering of your spirit
And the magical works of your hand.
We’re going to start a new kind
Of dreaming inna this land.

Awake! Awake! Awake!

Awaken the new brotherhood of dreams.
From these flowers
Draw new powers
To build new towers
Without fear.
It’s fear that darkens the shrine of the world.
It’s greed that darkens the shrine of the heart

Stone at your feet
Stone in the mind
Frozen blood in the veins
Dark rock in the heart.
We need a new miracle of being human.
We need a new miracle of being alive.
Ancestors sleep in these shrines.
Us their dreams illumine.
They planted these flowers
Along the black paths of time
Flowers that never die
Flowers that open up into
A thousand forms of art and living
Music in the flowers
And flowers in the music.
Dedicate yourselves
To the shrine of living.

Awaken your feet to the wisdom
Of the earth
Open your head to the wisdom
Of the heavens
Listen to the whispers
Of the fragrance
Of the survivors.

Windrush, chainrust, slaveburst.
Ancestors dreaming in the shrines.
Us their courage illumines.
Shine a light so bright
It burst all the darkness.
Write the magic of our souls
On the darkness of the night.
Like stars the shrines
Stream out the brilliance
Of the ancestors
Who with the clarity of their thought
Opened up new futures.
Those triple-locked steel doors
That we open with the magic touch
Of our light-charged spirit.

Oh but the spirits are singing in the hidden glow
The more they keep us down
The greater we will grow.
They are rowdy and they know.
They know
They know
They know

They know the revelations of Saint Time
Things that every day are becoming true
Things that are coming up through the shrine
Coming up for me and you.

This poem spoke to me in a really powerful way. It communicated the topic of shrines so eloquently. It has really been a way for me to concentrate my previous thoughts in a clearer and more manageable way.

In the first verse he explores magic, in a human sense, it is something that we all possess inside of us. ‘The true magic is the magic of you’, magic is really, in its truest form, the power of self. ‘Centre yourselves, In the part of you that’s most true’, we can ground ourselves by connecting with this magic by being our most authentic self and being true to our thoughts and desires. ‘Every thought in your heart helps shape reality’, in the context of shrines we can express our desires and use them to manifest our ideal reality by ‘offering of your spirit’. He suggests the physical art of shrine building with ‘the magical works of your hand’.

‘Draw new powers, To build new towers’, building towers suggests heightening consciousness, achieving a level of awareness that gives us power. He suggests a shrine as being something which can elevate us, overcoming darkness and fear.

‘Dedicate yourselves, To the shrine of living’, I enjoy the idea of a shrine as something for the living – it suggests being present in the moment and of celebrating life rather than being a place of mourning which is sometimes what we assimilate with shrines.

‘Ancestors dreaming in the shrines. Us their courage illumines’, here Okri talks about gaining strength from the dead, through shrines we can connect to our ancestors and through honouring and remembering them we can be given courage.

‘Things that every day are becoming true, Things that are coming up through the shrine, Coming up for me and you’, the poem ends with the idea of manifestation through the shrine. It suggests that something travels through the shrine, for us, and again eludes to the shrine being a gateway to connect with something higher than ourselves. ‘Those triple-locked steel doors, That we open with the magic touch’.

Looking at Grace’s exhibition has been a great help in concluding my research and plans for a final piece. She encapsulates the magic and spirituality of shrines outside of religion, and the significance of the shrine to attain rituals. It was a window to discover the poetry of Ben Okri which has also helped me to understand this subject in a more accomplished way.

Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s mixed-media constructions, collages, and installations are marked by a trashy opulence concocted from household items and dollar stores. Mimicking Byzantine decoration with cellophane, aluminum foil, tinsel and glitter, Lanigan-Schmidt (American, b. 1948) pioneered a maximalist aesthetic in the late 1960s that explored gay sexuality, class struggle, and religion. Mingling high with low, and sacred with profane, Lanigan-Schmidt bucked the reductive tastes of conceptualism and minimalism that dominated his youth, creating a radically decorative practice that, despite its influence, has never been properly assimilated into the history of American art. 

‘When one enters his apartment, one is first confronted by the shrine atop his refrigerator with glitter, tinsel, a princess, a Café Bustelo Coffee can, some peanut butter, and a tube of toothpaste. ‘

I find Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s work to be interesting for many reasons. For a time I have been interested in the use of everyday items used to make art. His ability to create aesthetically beautiful works from simple mediums such as foil is inspiring to me – the potential of things we often overlook to be manipulated and crafted is something I will definitely strive to do more of. His use of colour is exceptional, and I think he has obviously taken inspiration from stained glass, specifically that found in religious architecture such as churches and cathedrals.

His use of sacred and profane iconography is interesting. By using religious symbolism in a non religious context he walks a delicate line, his work could be seen as offensive or disrespectful yet I think it is an interesting play on the changing significance of religion in the modern world. It is something that has been in my thoughts when studying secular shrines – is it acceptable to use religious systems such as a shrine in a secular way and should this be approached with caution or celebrated?

As religion, specifically in my experience of a modern, western society, dwindles and less people associate with a certain religion than ever before it is interesting to look at the aspects which still manifest even in a generation of atheists.

Secular shrines (like my own) show aspects of religion without assigning to a specific one. I think there are basic principles in life which connect all religions and are shared universally, even in non religious people. Selflessness, love, compassion, community, traditions, teaching, virtue.

World Scripture, International Religious Foundation
Paragon House, 1995, p. 33

“….Similarly, the goals of spiritual practice for each religion, while not identical, have much in common Since the ideals imbued in human nature are universal, we may expect to find that people who have reached the goal, be it enlightenment, salvation, sanctification, self-realization, or liberation, indeed manifest the highest human qualities: love, compassion, wisdom, purity, courage, patience, righteousness, strength of character, calmness of mind, and inner joy. Regardless of religious belief, people who have realized such a goal inevitably impress others by their personal virtue. Ultimately, these goals converge and become one, inasmuch as they express the best of our common humanity.”

I think that it would be very difficult to look at shrines without understanding their relationship with ritual. From the stone circles of Stanton Drew which are said to be the setting for ancient rituals, to the more modern work of Callum Brown who created his domestic shrines to encourage ritual in relation to everyday objects – rituals and shrines are deeply intertwined.

Religious shrines are commonly a place of worship and through religion a shrine is a place that allows this (sometimes daily) practise of worship within the home. It is a space that encapsulates a certain mood and atmosphere – often a peaceful, healing one – which is perfect for prayer, meditation or thoughtfulness. This atmosphere is created in many ways, lighting like candles are often used, the senses are heightened visually through decoration, object placement and colour, and through smells like incense. It is important for me to note this as I would like to incorporate all of these things into my final design for a shrine. Each element is selected specially and for a purpose, it is this thoughtful process which gives a shrine it’s special power.

The placement of shrines in the home is also important to note. Different people and cultures will have different views of rooms within the home and so shrine placement varies. Despite this they are rarely in kitchens or bathrooms as these are generally perceived as practical places. Living rooms and bedrooms are often where they will be found – they are generally more personal, comforting areas. Personally, I think a shrine within a bedroom is the most likely to encourage ritual, in my experience the time before and after bed is extremely important when it comes to routine. Bed time and morning routines set us up for the entire day. Sleep is also very ritualistic in itself – it connects us with nature through the rising and setting of the sun – we feel healthiest when we have a strong sleeping pattern and sleep when it is dark as nature intended.

There is now a lot of research which connects health, wellbeing and productivity to routine….

[Taken from https://exploringyourmind.com/why-routine-is-so-important/%5D

Routine can be defined as a set of personal customs and habits. Logically, routine is necessary for successful integration into society. In fact, it’s very helpful for children because it gives them security and peace of mind. And it’s positive for adults too, because it reduces the amount of decisions that must be made. You make the decision one day, and it lasts for many.

Doctors Fredy González and Margarita Villegas have studied the advantages of routine, noting that it allows for space to understand one’s social environment from an individual perspective. It also allows for the development of the knowledge, abilities, behaviors, and attitudes necessary for the social self.
________________________________________________________________

With this understanding of the relationship between shrines and ritual alongside the importance of routine to wellbeing I feel there is an opportunity to explore the potential of a shrine to improve our everyday life and mental health.

How can I create a shrine which improves wellbeing?

A collection of made-to-order designs intended to engage whatever context they may eventually call home.

For Goodd’s VOFH project, Scottish-born designers Dean Brown and Callum Brown contributed Shrines, a “micro-furniture” series that invites users to incorporate and venerate objects of personal significance—a book, a flower, a bottle of wine—in everyday rituals.

I was lucky enough to be introduced to Catriona recently after a friend had informed her about my project. Initially she did not think that she had any shrines in her home (similarly to the way I did) but afterwards noticed that she actually had three! We enjoyed discussing how they had come about and the different types that she had within her home.

The above is what she described as ‘The Pope Corner’.
Created by her husband who was brought up as a Catholic but is now an atheist. It is to them a light hearted nod to that time – a playful joke on religion.

The second is a shrine containing items from a road trip from Peru to Mexico 44 years ago. It combines pottery, money and old tickets from her travels. She said that although she has moved around in the time since these objects have always had a place in her homes and that they are always grouped together as shown in the picture. It struck me that shrines can be representative of a certain time in our lives – not of a person or a deity but of an experience. It was an important and special to trip for her and this is a way that she remembers it and keeps that time in her life alive. 

The final shrine is Catriona’s landing, although the pictures included are spread across the room they are all of her father which suggests the whole space has become a shrine to him. She did not know her father but after her mothers death she inherited these photographs of him – he was a photographer and a climber. We discussed that perhaps only after her mothers death could she reconnect with her relationship to him, and that this was done by her physically displaying his photo’s in her house. 

I have already explored the pattern of grief and loss and how this can sometimes be a driving force in what makes people create shrines in the home. I think that this is another example of this, during testing times we turn to physical objects and their symbolism to find grounding or to make sense of events. I think that this is a beautiful example of the way we can gain comfort through displays and that the objects we collect (or inherit) can be displayed in such a way as to accentuate their value to us. 

I have been in contact with Catriona through email and she has kindly agreed to answer the interview questions I  have developed.

Interview:

Shrines

1 = Pope Corner, collection of Catholic kitsch mostly assembled in ironic manner by or for my husband, who was brought up as a Northern Irish Protestant and is now a staunch atheist

2 = Collection of pots, carvings, money, tickets from an epic road trip, mostly hitch-hiking, from Peru to Mexico 44 years ago

3 = Black and white photos by and of my father (and some include my mother), who was a Scottish photographer and a climber and whom I never knew as he died of TB two months before my birth

Are you a religious person?

My initial response was ‘No, not at all’. Growing up, my family (mother, aunt, grandparents) were not churchgoers and actively discouraged me from the Sunday morning High Anglican services that I was expected and keen to attend during my brief career in the Brownies. I was asked to leave for non-attendance of church, and, possibly, for fighting with a pixie. 

However, life, school and general middle-class respectability in those days assumed a base layer of nominal Christianity (my mother’s cousins became devout, but this was considered bad taste), so when, in my teens, I came out as a non-believer, this felt to me like a radical act, with the possibility of a thunderbolt reducing me to a pile of soot.

While I find dogma and ritual entirely alien and have many doubts about the possibility of devotion without sectarianism, I also recognise a need for the transcendent and numinous, which for me can be found in friendship, art, music, performance, literature and beauty. Then again, in my recent OU degree in Art History, I specialised in pre-Renaissance Italian altarpieces and my choral singing mostly involves Latin masses, so clearly no choices are entirely simple. I have also flirted with the Bristol Buddhist Centre and find Buddhist philosophy and practice intellectually satisfying and deeply calming.

My husband grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, with a Protestant father and a communist mother. He and his two brothers are committed atheists, although, unusually, coming from an environment where not only schools and neighbourhoods but even workplaces were segregated, one brother married a Catholic and moved to the south. Andrew does have a fascination with Catholic tat, but would be reluctant to explore why, except to acknowledge that it may be a part of his rejection of a Presbyterian culture with its stern message of no idolatry.

How long have you had your shrine?

1. 1. Around 15 years
   2. 44 years
   3. About 12 years

Does it change over time?

1. Yes, it does get added to – family and friends like to buy stuff for it, especially my sons, who find it amusing. They have now started to buy larger and more and more tasteless additions such as Madonnas with throbbing hearts which require batteries and have to be displayed elsewhere
2. Not really, and it never should be, because it is defined by one trip and a fixed period of time. However, I remember very close by some barnacle-encrusted shards of Roman amphorae which I found while diving in N Cyprus. These seem to be missing so perhaps the shrine has rejected them!
3. Not yet, but potentially I could add more photos or memories to it – there are many. But this would be entirely my choice and at my volition and not dictated by the wishes or gifts of others –  probably. My adored cousin and best friend Sheila could easily have been a contributor, but she died 7 months ago.

Why did you start it?

1. I think it started with either a random purchase or a gift of Catholic kitsch, acquired ironically as meaning the opposite of its face value
2. It began many years ago as a memory of a wonderful and life-changing road trip. My companion on the trip, a close friend and sometime partner, died 4 years after the trip of bone marrow cancer at the age of 28 so that probably cemented its status as a shrine rather than a more casual collection of stuff.
3. After my mother’s death, I found boxes of photos by and of my father, which I gradually sorted through and chose some to frame and hang. During my childhood, my father was rarely discussed, possibly because in my family it was as embarrassing to be dead as to be devout, but also for many more complex reasons. My mother remarried in my teens, and understandably, my father was not a regular topic. So perhaps my mother’s death was the chance for me to release my father from obscurity and from ancient biscuit tins.

Why are the parts significant to you?

1. They aren’t really, apart from being gifts (many of them) from my sons. It is satirical rather than sacred.  Although the Plastic Jesus (with Gliding Action) was acquired during a wonderful family trip to San Francisco and subsequently lost an arm to our previous dog, so he is certainly significant. He no longer glides.
2. They are a reminder of some wonderful places, extraordinary experiences, youth and, of course, a lost friend. There are pots from Peru, Costa Rica and Guatemala, a beautiful carved jade head from Panama, an Ecuadorian airforce permit to fly to Galapagos, Guatemalan money featuring the gorgeous and elusive quetzal and an entry ticket to Machu Picchu, amongst many other things. It was a trip that, as a home counties 20 year old, hugely changed and expanded my view of the world and from which I still retain many memories – lying on a boat in the Galapagos watching the Southern Cross rise and listening to honking sea lions and an Inca flute being one of the most vivid and somewhere to which I can return in times of stress.  There is a less happy memory of spending two days in jail in a small town in Columbia, during which I read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago from cover to cover. I still have the grubby and dog-eared copy, so maybe it should join the shrine.
3. The photos are my only link to my unmet father. One particular photo is of my father and my mother and the date on the back shows that she would have been pregnant with me – it is my only family photo. Or is it? Letters I found after my mother died suggested that my biological father may have been someone else – a Finn rather than my supposed Scottish father. I have deliberately neglected to explore this in the 15 years since my mother’s death and it has become my personal Schrodinger’s cat. I found the letters before hanging the photographs so is this a shrine to the presumed status quo or to the uncertainty of a quantum superposition?

Where is it in the house and why?

1. On the kitchen dresser – for no particular reason except that it seems to fit in with the general clutter.
2. On a shelf in the dining room – again for no special reason except that it is a quiet corner, high up, where the pots will not get broken – although shrines are often situated high up. This has travelled with me from house to house (the other two shrines are specific to my current home) and as far as I remember it has always been placed on a high shelf.
3. The photos are all around my upstairs landing – there is plenty of wall space and the white walls provide a good background for black and white images. Also, it is a part of the house that is pretty much only seen by family and by visitors who stay the night, so there is the intimacy of an inner space, not accessible to all.

How does it make you feel?

1. It makes me feel vaguely amused but also sometimes a little guilty and disrespectful to be hosting the trivialisation of the iconography of a religion that is not my own. So I sometimes experience a sense of unease about this shrine.
2. I feel nostalgia for that time of my life, for wonderful places I will probably never visit again and still a sense of loss for my dead friend. It is a keen reminder of change and impermanence and the impossibility of return.
3. Many things – grief for my mother, wishing I had known my father, admiration for his climbing and photographic skills, questioning what our relationship would have been like, wondering how different my childhood would have been if he had lived (very, and in my head idyllic, but who can say?), wondering what he would make of my life and whether he would be proud of me. Many what ifs, including the big ‘what if he wasn’t my father? ‘

Do you interact with the shrine every day?

1. No, not interact, but it is in my line of sight when I sit at my kitchen table
2. No, rarely, as it is tucked away in a quiet corner
3. Yes, in a way – I pass through on my way to the shower in the morning and say hello to at least a couple of photos that catch my eye

If so, at what points in the day – is it ritualistic?

1. Random, and no not at all.
2. No – again very random and for long periods I don’t interact with it.
3. In the morning – see above. I suppose it has become a quiet, passing morning ritual. Since writing this piece it has, for now, become a more intrusive, less comfortable and more poignant experience.

What would it be like if it wasn’t there?

1. It think it wouldn’t matter hugely
2. Part of my past would be missing. And as my friend is dead, I am the keeper of the memories. I might have to go on another South American road trip.
3. I would feel loss and bereavement. Sometimes I realise the light is slowly affecting the images and I should put them back in a dark box but I can’t bear to. This feels rather symbolic – my father was kept unseen but safe in a tin for many years and only began to fade when I brought him into the light.

It has occurred to me, writing this, that my shrines involve loss, but loss from many years ago, before my time of Jungian individuation (thank you Julie). More recent losses are unrepresented, including four lost babies and some very dear friends and family. Perhaps they don’t need shrines as I hold them close anyway, but this is something I feel I now need to explore. Do I have the room for a shrine upgrade? Do I have the desire, need and impetus, or are shrines something we have to start at a particular time in our lives and let momentum and habit carry forward? Can you plan a shine or should it always happen naturally and organically? And do I need anything more to dust?

My Wunderkammer shrine

Are you a religious person?

I am an atheist with a very lively interest in religions of the world – I love Western ecclesiastical music, architecture and art and am also interested in Eastern religions though have much more restricted knowledge. Since adolescence I have been gripped by mediaeval religious lyrics – and much religious literature thereafter. I am also very aware of my dissenting low church ancestors – indeed we have traced them back to seventeenth century Massachusetts when one of them signed the order to hang the Witches of Salem! So, though I have no religion, it is part of my background and I understand some of the many forms a shrine can take. 

Please note that I have never lost my child’s delight in the miniature and from childhood have imbued objects and books with great power and significance – not magic though….

How long have you had your shrine?

I have had this cabinet of books and objects for 30 years so started it when I was 35 – just when Jung says we enter the second half of our life and the process of individuation, finding meaning in living and in dying – becoming one’s own self. My books are part of the shrine because of the myriad emotional and intellectual associations they have for me – and they often have very old lists, pictures and letters tucked in their pages. The objects have tended to grow over them slowly like barnacles on the bottom of an old boat. I think it’s like a time capsule and once in, neither books nor objects can leave….in fact these are hard to get at books and I have to be desperate to read them – the shrine doesn’t like being disturbed!

Does it change over time?

Not much now because it is crammed full. More recent outposts creep through the house in little gatherings on shelves and mantelpieces. In my cabinet there is a slight tidal effect because I always tuck theatre and gig tickets behind the pictures of my son – because then I know absolutely where they are and nothing will dislodge them, not even my dreadful memory!

Why did you start it?

I bought a lovely old German book case with glazed doors and a working lock. I put in particularly special loved books so most have been there for 30 years. The shelves were wide and of pleasing wood so they became over the years a safe haven for little objects that I valued and wanted to protect – I always have naughty nosy Burmese cats running about looking for things to capture and chew so it’s a sanctuary for the delicate too!

Why are the parts significant to you?

I could write a book about this shrine as it represents so many dimensions of me: what I love or otherwise, what I want to remember or otherwise, to celebrate, to preserve as well as markers and pledges or reminders of things still to do or to go back to pick up where I left off. It represents relationships both past and present in a series of gifts and images – I also think I have included votive offerings: for example, my embroideries are very much about reconnecting with my female ancestors.

The top shelf is very important

On the left hand side are some old gardening books from Bath as a reminder that when I retire I will find my garden again. Next there are books on Orkney – the sea, the sky, the landscape, flora and Neolithic remains and these are very special: I went there after a miscarriage and they are the only actual objects I have that remind me of my lost baby. Then a slew of books on women printmakers and illustrators – my passion! And I want to keep developing my own skills as printmaker and craftsperson – my shrine is full of encouraging/annoying voices like this. In fact the top shelf is all old art and printmaking books and a clutch of books about ancient Greek pots which I absolutely reverence – I love Greek funeral jars (and of course, Pandora’s box was mistranslated and is actually a jar) so I also keep there a painted fragment of ancient Mycenaean pottery I found outside the walls of Mycenae 47 years ago. 

In front of the Orkney books there’s a tiny Italian Commedia dell’arte theatre like the one I want to make – I love all types of puppets – and a most charming picture of my son as a baby in his Moses basket. That sits on top of a tiny box given me in the seventies by my friend Jane, full of ammonites and Barton fossils that were given to me as a little girl by an elderly neighbour; they had belonged to her son who had died as a young man and she knew I would care for them – I regard it as a memory box as I was very fond of her and had many happy days in her beach hut near the New Forest coastline, spuddling (well that’s what we called it – rock pooling, shrimping, chasing crabs and fish and collecting shells) The top shelf is all memory boxes: there’s a box of Victorian glass counters from the grandmother I was not close to, and a lustre jug like a miniature of the one she always told me she would give me and never did – a completely unconscious purchase at the time! And a little soapstone jar with an old necklace from my lovely grandmother and the most fascinating tiny half inch ebony pig she gave me with a Stanhope in its side – it’s a tiny optical device and when you look into it you see the whole of Salisbury Cathedral where about a century later I heard the best gig ever – Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers – like nothing else since! In another jar, there are uncut garnets from Madagascar given me by a very special teacher together with an Elizabethan silver sixpence that belonged to my Canadian Great-Grandfather

There are other objects and two new things: in the lustre jug is a dried seed head from Brazil brought back by my son – it spent quarantine time in my freezer! And a tiny brightly coloured Polish Szopka (nativity) with flags and banners: this is the only overtly religious object in my shrine but in fact it’s there because I love the shiny brightness of it. And stuffed on top of the books are all my completed embroideries rolled up in tissue

The second shelf 

I bought most of these books as a teenager before I left home, from Gilbert’s by  Southampton Bargate – my favourite haunt!! Lots of poetry including favourites Marvell, Pope and Blake. The loveliest miniature Victorian copy of the Arabian Nights in a tiny leather case and a copy of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe in French that I bought in Arles when I hitchhiked around France when I was 17 – I was sick all over it when I drank too much red wine for the first time and you can still see marks! 

Objects include a small Devonware vase with a pale wild daffodil just like my grandmother’s vase – a conscious commemorative purchase this time! And a tiny china fairing she gave me; an old workbasket with her needle case and one embroidered by my mother as well as a photograph of the latter and also one of my sister with her husband who died very young. There’s a delicate Chinese dish on an ebony stand from my sister to thank me for my support at that time and a lovely silk pincushion from a very old friend who died tragically in an accident together with a bamboo pipe he brought me back from Indonesia. There are two fabulous pictures of my son, one framed in paste diamonds which seems a bit idolatrous! And one in a paper frame from a luscious paper shop in Venice which I love. There’s all sorts of tiny things tucked away and too many to enumerate, lots of natural objects like shells, dried flowers given me from Giverny, ammonites from friends, fossilised crinium stems from the mud of Star Well given me by an old friend. And an old china inkwell with pens reminding me to do more drawing…

The third shelf

Well this is a bit of a jumble – of books and of objects and of meanings. There’s an old glass paint brush jar covered in reed weaving from a particularly fabulous Irish trip many years ago (please shrine make my brushes work well…)  Poetry, Latin (a pledge to return), Italian (ditto) and French and several books of both religious and secular mediaeval poetry as well as the York Mystery Plays bought when I left University and York for the last time. One book is a fourteenth century allegorical dream poem called Pearl: the dreamer has lost his small daughter, his “precious perle wyth-outen spot” and has a redeeming vision of a beneficent Perle-mayden. This book has tucked in it the last picture I took of my mother just a few days before she died and in the background is my dearest friend Cathy. I also have a lovely tiny Japanese teapot given me when I was 5 and always with me – sadly I broke the jug so it has a ghostly companion. In fact, the cabinet is full of ghosts but mostly small and friendly and completely metaphorical! Several pictures: Lily, the sweetest and most affectionate Burmese cat ever and killed when she was only 5; my old dogs Jack & Jessie; me as a toddler with my watering can which I just remember – and I remember sense of warmth. It’s a shoreline with things the waves washed up and it’s much more obscured from view than the other two shelves so it’s not so clear & helpful, more mysterious and uncertain. Like the Sibyl of Cumae’s prophesies, the results will always be a bit cryptic and getting one’s heart’s desire is a mixed affair!

Where is it in the home and why?

It sits squarely in my sitting room and when I sit working at the table, as now, it is always in my line of vision – it’s almost like the heart of the house.

How does it make you feel?

Well it’s intensely self-referential and I wonder if mine is the first generation that has turned away from centuries of faith and have these personal secular shrines?

Anyway, I love the way it moves backwards and forwards through time though all this remembering is quite a pressure. The other day I found a leaf in an old book I hadn’t looked at for decades: it crumbled and broke apart. I have totally forgotten it’s provenance and I didn’t label it because I probably thought I would remember why it was significant, where it grew, what the moment was about but of course I don’t – equally it might have been a random bookmark! In the same way, unlike religious shrines, there is no obvious shared meaning in mine – I am the key and responding to this interview has made me want to capture even more because the meaning is elusive and flies away from me – but perhaps that is part of the power too. It’s not all about narrative memory as it has a much more subtle sensory presence. And it’s the proximity of books and objects to each other too – they augment the power which has slowly matured over the years.

Do you interact with the shrine every day and if so what parts? Is it ritualistic?

I think I do in fact – it’s never been something I look at without seeing and my mind plays over it, a bit like telling rosary beads – I also find some of the objects aesthetically pleasing. I see it as a thing of concentrated meaning, capable of absorbing projections and perhaps sometimes sustaining – it gives me a friendly wave! 

But it’s not ritualistic apart from the fact that I don’t like disturbing it and haven’t for years. There is an embroidered Roma star hanging on the key and I do fill it with lavender and neroli oil quite regularly 

But I am noticing I feel I have to describe everything and I’m getting anxious at missing things out as if that’s a slight – with consequences…There is something almost magical about the ‘true’ naming of something – look at Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea.

What would it be like if it wasn’t there?

Nothing would ever work so well in helping me think and remember, rather like Tony Judt’s The Memory Chalet. O dear what a horrible thought: the things would come out, blinking like moles in the sunlight, all over the place because they had lost their containing skin – the power that feels concentrated in this cabinet would seep away and disperse. I would miss it intensely.

And thank you Angie, for this opportunity to reflect on its meaning for me : it’s been a special time for me to do this as I am retiring this year so time to listen to the Shrine’s voices a little harder.

Artist Laurie Beth Zuckerman creates altar installations and memory jugs using an eclectic blend of Catholic, Hispanic, African, and Haitian religious sensibilities. Laurie collects antique religious art and found-objects to construct her memorials, honoring the lives of her Russian-Jewish ancestors. Her enigmatic memory vessels are small-scale assemblages of natural materials and vintage memorabilia. 

‘My found-object assemblage altars and memory vessels are the ideal format for my approach to visual excess, with synchronicity guiding my visual directions. The gestalt of each altar amounts to more than the sum of its myriad parts—transcending the material world to reveal mysteries from the spiritual realm.’

I enjoy her work because of the diversity in objects she collects and her placement of them. She uses symmetry a lot which I think is a common theme in shrines I have looked at. Symmetry gives a structured, calming effect which is important as without this the displays might look disorganised.

Her use of colour scheme is also striking – she keeps a fairly strict scheme which also keeps her displays cohesive.

Are you a religious person?

I was brought up as a Roman Catholic in a traditionally devout but relatively sophisticated family. I cannot say that I have any religious beliefs at all now but would prefer to describe myself as agnostic. While no creationist, and able to recognise that human beings have been hard-wired over the ages to believe, I still find the notion of a purely material world frightening. For me, science does not have all the answers; as one door shuts, another one opens. Like so many others, I am stuck on the question of what caused the ‘singularity’ in the first place! I rather like the Einstein quote: “It is better to believe than to disbelieve; in so doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility.” 

I certainly miss the rituals of the religion of my youth, the times of abstinence, the rigorous examination of the conscience, the sense of something beyond my own self. Serious rituals are very sustaining; the lack of them in a Protestant country is dismaying to me.

How long have you had your shrine?

For about 13 years.

Does it change over time?

The basic arrangement doesn’t alter because it needs more space and I would prefer the shrine to have a larger, more ornate framework made of wood. I could happily rearrange it, though: I enjoy the fresh energy that each new icon brings and can spend quite some time thinking about where to place it. I don’t want to impose any kind of real order on the shrine; I like its random quality. I am planning an outline of tiny white lights and artificial marigolds as decoration.

Why did you start it?

All Roman Catholics of my generation acquired objects over time: icons, holy cards, medals, rosaries. I had a little cluster from my childhood that I had not consciously kept but couldn’t bring myself to throw out. My religious background has left me with an obsession with Roman Catholicism in all its aspects that I continue to share with like-minded friends. In the knowledge that it has formed me as a person, my attitudes towards it vary. At one and the same time I can find it preposterous, hilarious, awe-inspiring, comforting, intellectually challenging, cruel, immoral and much more. My obsession was recharged by a birthday gift of The Oxford Dictionary of Saints; at the same time my brother had taken a year-long sabbatical to live in Mumbai and I asked him if he’d bring back a Hindu icon. This brother, Mark, a year older than me, is a great traveller and shares my feelings about Roman Catholicism except that he would claim convinced atheism. His own expertise in ancient churches and particularly mediaeval frescoes perhaps plays the same role for him as the shrine does for me. Although my family home unlike other households I knew had not been full of religious objects, the Hindu icon made me realise how much I generally missed objects around me that carried meaning beyond the one that I’d imposed on them myself. In Catholic countries I had always liked and felt comforted by wall and wayside shrines; I wanted to gather round me the sort of talismanic objects that people across the world have always gathered in their homes: basic and inexpensive, frequently quite tacky. 

Why are the parts significant to you?

Tolerance of ‘otherness’ is essential to me; I cannot see how human beings are to progress if there is no respect for different values and beliefs. Religion has caused horrifying division and hostility for centuries, all on the basis of what many would construe as pure meaninglessness. The shrine countenances the urge to find meaning shared by all cultures and represents without endorsement a willingness to try and understand why people think as they do. 

I am reminded that the shrine is also a repository of friendship. I certainly cannot look at it without thinking of the people who gave me the icons. I am always touched to know that they have thought of me and love the stories they bring of how they acquired the objects. I regret not having travelled extensively myself, so the shrine is really only sustained by friends who venture to faraway places. I value immensely in an object the ‘vibe’ of its place of origination and would never acquire anything myself from the internet, tempting as it often is. I am happy to accept something that has been accessed in this way but only if it is authentic and has been sent by someone who can properly judge that quality. Mark and my special friend Julie have both contributed substantially to the shrine. The shiny Mexican day of The Dead objects sent by Julie quite unprompted showed how closely she understood the concept and brought me huge pleasure. Another friend brings me items that are well chosen but I have a suspicion that she might be humouring just another manifestation in me of what she’d probably interpret as mad RC superstitiousness.   

Sometimes the objects have been acquired in difficult circumstances, often under pressure of language restrictions and can be sometimes only vaguely identified. As each icon is a repository of history and legends, I find the research into their provenance fascinating and keep a file to remind me of names and often quite complex detail. My research is ongoing as quite a few are still not completely classified. I have three images of an Indian male character sitting with one foot loosely propped up on his knee which was described to me as a generic figure of the wandering Holy man to be seen across India. Something about the pose struck me as little too informal for a religious representation; this sent me onto the internet to investigate. Fascinatingly, the image turned out to be of a very specific Holy man, Sai Baba of Shirdi who died in 1918 and is now regarded by devotees as a saint; for some, he is the patron saint of Mumbai. Sai Baba condemned distinction based on religion or caste and is associated with both Hinduism and Islam. He believed in openness and readiness to converse on all subjects; hence the non-conformity and ease of the pose depicted in the three images I have.

Some images carry a strange power that makes me keep my distance. One of the photos shows three fetishes brought from Nicaragua with the instruction that they have to be kept together always. The little jar of water contains repulsive-looking vegetable and animalistic items; I haven’t a clue what the white item is. The holy card is of a woman, the Lonely Spirit (Anima Sola) in Purgatory. The words on the back are addressed ‘Oh Señor!’ and she is invoking his help to escape and get to heaven. The Señor could be either God or, in the Latin American Santeria version, the god Eshu Alleguana (or Elegua) who represents despair but as a sorcerer lives in darkness, holds keys and can break chains.

The golden disc with the Islamic inscription ‘Allah is great’ is important to me because it comes from Libya just before the fall of Gaddafi and was bought from a trader who was very reluctant to sell it to an English non-Muslim female. The huge plastic hands cupping the disc represent to me not only the all-encompassing power of Allah but the artificial control of the state: there’s a hint of Soviet-style artwork about them. It is all the more precious to me to have this in a shrine of too many Christian objects. As no depiction of Allah or The Prophet is permitted in the Muslim faith, I cherish the disc as a powerful representation of Islam.

Similarly, the green and gold Islamic prayer mat from southern Turkey, which lies on the table supporting the shrine, was sold unwillingly to my brother who was sternly interrogated as to whether he knew what it was and what he intended to use it for.

Where is it in the house and why?

I prefer not it have it in my bedroom: the intensity of it would be too great. It is placed therefore in the second bedroom which used to be my mother’s and stands just next to where her dressing table used to be. This had an astonishingly cluttered surface with little statues of Our Lady, saints’ medals and rosaries all mixed up with kirby grips, hair spray, nail varnish, coins, lipstick, photos, safety pins etc. I sometimes wonder if I haven’t simply replaced my mother’s clutter with my own. The shrine is a private and meaningful object in itself; as such it is not placed in a more ‘public’ part of the premises, though I might prefer it to be, because I find it so interesting and so pretty to look at. I am aware that it’s open to scorn and derision, if not blank incomprehension. I have experienced those reactions enough to only show it now to close friends and family. It occurred to me recently that people may feel that it is like an adult Doll’s House and that I am regressing by passing my time moving about curious little characters from one space to another. Because it could be construed in such a derogatory way, it is important to maintain its specialness by keeping it away from prying eyes.

How does it make you feel?

Calm, restful, sometimes excited. It’s pleasing to the eye and feels creative to engage with. As someone lacking in artistic abilities, it makes me feel happy to have created and ‘edited’ some kind of object, even if the art is purely one of arrangement rather of originality.

Do you interact with the shrine every day?

No. Sometimes I forget all about it. Months can go by before I am suddenly struck by it all over again. It has great force for me but I am conscious of having to discipline my fascination. It is purely representational; I don’t want to let it draw me in, to somehow ‘activate’ it. Many Catholics remember their fears in prayer of having a vocation: of seeing flowers move on the altar at Mass by way of confirmation! 

If so at what points in the day – is it ritualistic?

I have no rituals, bar lighting candles in memoriam or at times of great difficulty for people special to me.

What would it be like if it wasn’t there?

It would leave a huge hole. I would feel bereft of an element of transcendence that is completely missing from my life. 

Emma Grosbois is a French photographer. She visited Palermo in Sicily in 2014 to complete a series called ‘Those Who Watch Us’. Her work focuses on the mix between the sacred and profane and the survival of altars in places of everyday life. The assembly of the images suggests a disorder that needs to be analysed: it reflects the experience and personality of people. The shrines she photographs are for dead relatives and saints – as well as footballed and glamour models. They are built on walls to keep memories alive.

The way her images encourage us to look at disorder and analyse to understand personal experiences is something I can relate to in terms of my own ‘shrine’ shelf. The survival of the shrine is something I think will come to play in my own work as I feel personal shrines within the home as well as secular shrines are a way that religion is resurfacing in a modern (in my experience western) society which is becoming more and more detached from traditional religious practises. 

It is quite difficult to find personal examples of shrines within peoples home as firstly, not everybody has one and secondly, it is a very personal thing and not easily accessible to photograph.

Despite this I have found a couple of people who are willing to talk to me about their shrines and let me photograph them.

I am devising interview questions to ask that will help me to understand in more depth why people have them in the home, and what is gained from them specifically in a modern context.

My initial question ideas are:

• Are you a religious person?
• How long have you had your shrine?
• Does it change over time?
• Why did you start it?
• Why are the parts significant to you?
• Where is it in the house and why?
• How does it make you feel?
• Do you interact with the shrine every day?
• If so at what points in the day – is it ritualistic?
• What would it be like if it wasn’t there?

Although I have found some people who are willing to be a part of this project I am concerned with not being able to find enough and a diverse enough range. I feel I will not be able to express the topic well enough through this medium. Therefore, I am now looking at other ways to investigate shrines that will not be inhibited by my ability to access other peoples personal spaces.

At this point I am most interested in the physicality of the shrines and the symbolism of objects. In this respect I feel I can explore the 3D aspect and design of shrines, so instead of photography I am going to use the research I gather to possibly create an installation or model. The interviews will still be a very valid part of my research but will no longer be a final outcome.