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“(…) Shiny veneers, monumental couches, elegant cabinets, ornamental jardinières, padded sofas, soft cushions and patterned carpets protected from the feeling of disappointment and social and political instability. Symmetrically arranged furnishings and low-hanging paintings created an optical sensation of rounded and limited space. The room enclosed its resident absorbing all shocks and securing from injuries.
In the second half of the 19th century, the bourgeois playroom is visited by some eccentric guests. The media starts to spit ectoplasm — viscous whitish substance called “body of ghosts” — and the round tables decorated with doilies or embroidered napkins become the means of communication with the intangible sphere. The mahogany or nut-tree table resting on a central solid leg fixed to a plinth does not only host social encounters. Such tables gave rest to townsmen and allowed them to sip tea, argue with revelers or listen to musicians; but they were also recommended to the beginning spiritualists. After the year 1848, the idealized chambers similar to those illustrated in furniture brochures become laboratories where science and occult came together (…)”.
The project represents a further stage in my reflections on the relationship of the occult to the domestic environment and the bourgeoisie.
(Excerpt from the text titled Domestic Violence published as a part of the catalogue of the Rooms exhibition curated by Frank Ammer during the 2019 Fotofestiwal in Łódź.)
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Milena Soporowska is a visual artist based in Poland. Her work explores, among other things, the intertwining of everyday life with magic and the occult, questioning the concept of home as a safe, familiar haven. She is interested in the combination of alternative medicine and psychoanalysis, and the overlap between Christianity, esotericism and folk spirituality.
She graduated in Art History, presenting her master's thesis on the influence of spiritualistic and mediumistic photography on art in the light of Freud's category of unheimlich. She also studied photography, museology and psychotronics. Moreover, Milena is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos mentoring programme.
Handmade Spiritismus
A hand signifies the causative powers. It is also involved in making contact – with people, with the environment. When we make something with our own hands, it always has an added value.
In the tarot, the hands hold the four symbols of the elements that structure our reality.
A spiritual séance begins with creating a circle by touching each other's hands.
The casts of the spirits' hands created during the séances served as evidence, testimony to the presence of such spirits.
According to chiromancy, our life is written on the palm of our hand.
Finally, various rituals require manual actions. Thanks to the involvement of the body, abstract thought is combined with matter.
During the pandemic, the hand became an ominous refrain – a source of infection, disease.
From then on, I started thinking about it even more often.
My aim was to document homemade “rituals” and at the same time to examine modern forms of DIY home esotericism. I wanted to document people's search for structure and meaning in astrology, tarot, spiritualism, numerology and runes. My starting point were the 19th century spiritualistic séances organised in private homes, without a clergyman as an official mediator.
The contact-restricting pandemic inadvertently turned my attention to myself, inwards. I began to follow the subtle signs of esoteric interests that I have developed from my childhood years until now. My handmade spiritual knitting is created using materials from my childhood, an assortment of stationery and five-and-dime shops, nail art items, souvenirs. The project is a record of the beginning of this journey and at the same time a prelude to presenting the stories of others like me.