the TEMENOS art fellowship
a sanctuary
for radical*
creative
practice
an immersive live/work creation-lab
for deepening artistic practice
through integrative inquiry
*radical - from Latin radicalis, *wrād- "branch, root"; "of or having roots; originating in the root or ground; going to the origin, essential"
The most important artwork to make now is functional. A toolbox containing the necessary instruments for the construction of a new world. Art must do its part in this imminent reinvention. Art must be useful. And the practice of art must be put to use on behalf of the whole.
In this pivotal era, it is necessary to imagine a new world liberated from inherited structures and built upon consciously deliberated values, but even more critical is the creation of methodologies that will help us realize that imagining - to create together new mythologies, new forms of communication, new ways of configuring meaning, a new story of humanity.
Art once served as a tool for creating cohesion, catharsis, and collective synchronization. Art was once a tool of connection. It can do more than express and inspire. It can respond to the needs of its time and place.
We need not only a new vision, but a new way of seeing.
The only vision that will survive the complexity, adversity, and separation of our times is one devoted to integrating the wisdom of the heart, the mind, the body & the spirit. Together. Unapologetically. And in a vast diversity of voices.
the CONTEXT
A new art. Not about life, but in life. A new life.
“But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists-in-life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.”
- Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
A temenos is a terrain ‘cut off’ from the world of the mundane or ordinary, dedicated to a certain extraordinary purpose. In ancient Greece (where we find the origin of the term), a temenos was a site dedicated to honoring a deity or sanctified principle - the grounds of a temple, sanctuary, sacred grove, cave, or source spring. Later, this term was reclaimed by Carl Jung, who described the temenos as a place in which the unconscious can reveal itself, a space dedicated to the transformative process in which the encounter with (and the integration of) the whole becomes possible.
For the ancient Greeks, for Carl Jung, and for a diversity of other traditions (ancient Egypt, Mayan, Tibetan Buddhism, Renaissance alchemy, Lakota, Hopi, and many others…), this ‘whole’ of being is comprised of 4 aspects, often referred to as
‘the heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit or soul.’
the FRAME
Only through systemic integration can the most profound practices (and thereby, with hope, the most inspired sources of understanding and invitation) emerge. We are inviting all four of these aspects into the process of research (hereby named, “Integrative Inquiry”), so that creation can spring forth from their alignment (“Emergent Creation”).
The TEMENOS art fellowship is dedicated to providing a space in which Integrative Inquiry and Emergent Creation become methods of living, learning and making. Through these methods, Temenos fellows live in an immersive engagement of radical creative practice. Yes, radical. Not in the rebellious-reactive way. But truly radical. From the root. All the way into the branches.
Since its conception, La SOURCE Center for Research & Creation has been built upon a compatible model related to the study of Love. We examine love through 4 layers :
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inner-connective (love within self)
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inter-connective (love between self and other)
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eco-connective (love for the environment)
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and omni-connective (love amidst & throughout all that is).
These layers echo out, from a seed to an all-encompassing inclusion.
Trying to observe simply one, rather than the relationship between them, will only provide a fragment of a portrait. Only a quick, partial glimpse of Love.
‘A fellowship’ (etym.- ‘a body of companions’ or ‘the spirit of comradeship’) - indicates an attitude of collective support for a shared mission. A fellow - from old English, is “one who shares with another.” This is foundational. The mistake has been in believing our lives belong only to us - the illusion of the cult of the individual. Our learning does not belong to us.
We learn for our own growth, but also for the growth of the whole. We make art for our own liberation and expression, but also for the liberation and expression of the whole. We create for our own becoming, but also for the becoming of the whole.
Economic, academic, and cultural institutions are often designed to emphasize the individual voice as proprietary. Whether or not you intend it, what you bring into this world exists beyond you. This is the creator’s complex responsibility. By living and working together here in the immersive environment of La SOURCE, this sharing is evident in daily life. Each fellow’s inspiration, feeling, realizations, doubts, questions, epiphanies, stories, frustrations, and various states circulate. And as every ‘arrival’ can be received as a generous opportunity in the creative process, the experiences of one become the resources of all.
Being a “Researcher” is not about degrees or academia or institutional legitimization. It is the introduction of inquiry and methodologies of observation into the learning process of one’s encounter with the world. Researchers are passionate lovers of questions.
Being an “Artist” is not about being signed to a gallery or record label or theater or dance company or publishing house - it is the living devotion to a practice that shapes and transmits this learning to the world. Artists are catalysts, providing decisive elements that transform the emergent reality.
Being a “Creator” is a radical merging of the two. It means placing your role as an architect of the forever-renewing world as the guiding star for your life’s work.
Universities have been called ‘temples of learning,’ and museums ‘temples of art.’ Here, the TEMENOS fellowship hosts a ‘temple of creation’ - and that temple is life. Your life. All of our lives.
the FELLOWSHIP
Every act of creation is an act of love. Creators are a certain kind of expert on love-making.
- La Sourcière de Cosquer
“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes them its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks their own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through them. As a human being they may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist they are “human” in a higher sense - they are “collective human” - one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of humankind.”
- Carl Jung