Text for: The ten aspects of the One
Solo show at Aula Magna akbild, Vienna 2017.
Consciousness is haunted by a paradox. As we tend to identify with the intimate familiarity of our thoughts and feelings, we easily neglect the experience of a deep connection to a world rising at the threshold of awareness. Yet it is only along intricate passageways connecting the interior and exterior of consciousness, that we actually can form an understanding of ourselves, stepping beyond the immediacy of our thoughts and our feelings. We exist at the same time as the observer and the object of observation, as the interior and the exterior consciousness. And it’s from within this vey externality, that we can establish a place to observe, that we can transform. Essentially, who are we really? And what are we stepping into?
The ancient idea of cosmos proposes a systematic order of all things material and immaterial. Mapping for us the geographies of consciousness and articulating the connection between interior and exterior, it is at its core that we can identify the promise of knowledge: “You are always already things that you are not aware. But you can become beware of it.” The desire and the promise to know mark a historical continent that we are connected to through many different ways. Rendering the invisible visible, it is through knowledge that we mark our place in the world, connecting with the cosmos while at the same time setting up the very place from which we can see ourselves. Knowledge draws the connections and constitutes the gates. But practice is the key.
The museography of the show The ten Aspects of the One is inspired by antique symbology and mystic knowledge which over the course of history have perpetually been referenced and remain present within the spatial layout and the architecture of many public institutions (such as churches, hospitals, palaces etc.). This is true also for Aula Magna itself. Through the arrangement of the works, but also through its use of materials and colors, the show connects biographical experience with a dorment knowledge present within space itself. Re-activating the architectural manifestation of ancient symbologies (and the cosmologies behind them) connects us not only with a a fascinating sedimentation of knowledge, but also opens up a completely different possibility to interact and engage with this knowledge.
Sofia Cruz Rocha is a Vienna based artist born in Mexico City. Her installations operate through a network of different media mixing painting, photography, writings, video etc. The specific medium is a vehicle to materialize intended ideas, therefore the choice of the media depends on the characteristics of each project. The central theme in her work is the human experience, working with different subjects like the perception of reality, the fiction, the space and time, such as topics related with universal laws of physics and mysticism. At the moment those elements coexist in the same space and form installations, the connection between the information evokes forces. When the viewer has contact with those forces; the information is transformed into knowledge.
“Being an artist has allowed me to build and develop a distinct language. This language is expressed in my work. My work is the vehicle through which I can transmit to others the forces that drag me into the world." – Sofia Cruz Rocha
[Text by Clemens Aaron Rettenbacher]