February 2005

Every year in February, the World Centre has a two-day Arts and Crafts Show featuring the work of the many talented friends serving here. This year, I helped to set up panels and hang and label artwork. In addition to hung artwork, pottery, hand-dyed scarves, leatherwork, jewelry, children's paintings, original films, baked goods, etc. were on display. I entered a multimedia installation piece entitled "Five Walks of Pilgrimage". In this piece (which I thought up before falling asleep on a Friday about two weeks before the show and worked furiously to finish in time) I took a picture looking down every step along the pathway leading up to the Shrine of the Bab, the Prophet-Forerunner of Baha'u'llah, and a shot looking up as a reference every 19 steps (a number Baha'is use for counting purposes in their daily prayers). I put these images into a looping slideshow that had a counter running in the corner which reset every 19 slides. I also recorded the sound of walking over the stones and crushed tile pathways and had it accompany the slideshow. On the panels that were used to darken the projector space, I hung two series of photographs, one of which was actually bought! It was the first piece of artwork I've ever sold, and happily all the proceeds went to the fund of the Baha'i Faith. In fact, one of the purposes of the arts show is to promote contributions to the fund, a spiritually significant privilege only Baha'is have, which aims to fulfil the material needs of the Faith. It is through the contributions of Baha'is all over the world, the majority in developing countries, that enables the World Centre to maintain its beautiful holy sites and support its volunteer staff. The arts show also included a fashion show that I participated in by dressing in a vaguely 60s style outfit and strutting to Stevie Wonder down the cafe catwalk. There were both silly and cultural sections to the fashion show as you can see from the costumes in the group photo below. Walking has never been so difficult, since you have to accomplish this seemingly mundane task to a beat. Kind of a weird but most definitely fun experience!