LALA invites you to an evening hosted by our current resident Samantha Sea Sea, a New York based, Brooklyn native performance artist who works with video, sound, movement, poetry and the human voice.
The Water Temple
“Hydromancy is a form of divination and a method of scrying practiced in Ancient Greece. Seers would stare into water, reading its ripples, reflections and bubbles as messages from the divine.
When I read about this practice I was intrigued, as I have always felt a deep connection to water. Water also has great spiritual and historical significance in African diasporic spiritual practices and histories. From Yoruba deities such as Yemaya and Oshun, to the fresh water baptisms conducted in Black Churches in the Southern United States. Those who jumped from the ships on the middle passage from Africa to the americas, choosing death by sea over life in slavery, are often invoked as venerated ancestors. Today, migrants who often journey over water, put their lives at risk to flee impossible circumstances, moving towards lands where the racism they’ll likely face is preferable to annihilation at home.
As an artist and human of the African diaspora, I wanted to create a space to contemplate the Power and potency of water. This feels especially relevant within the context of Victoria, a neighborhood that is a center of migrant life in Athens, with many neighbors having recently taken on this harrowing journey.
The temple of water is an invitation to sit in contemplation with water and all of its spiritual and emotional potency. It is a meditative installation featuring an original soundtrack, in the vein of LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela’s Dream House. Before you enter the temple you will be offered a drink of either Kanna or chamomile tea. Kanna is a mildly psychoactive herb derived from a Southern African succulent and traditionally consumed by the San tribe to induce a trance state before hunts. Chamomile is a milder herb known to calm the nervous system. As you enter the room, you will be handed three stones and invited to sit in front of a water vessel. At your desired pace, you may drop these stones into the vessel, and read the ripples, reflections and patterns that you see. What histories, feelings, and images does water hold for you?”