If you look closely at this image, you’ll discover that it is composed of the Buddhist Prayer for Peace, each letter cut from the Methodist Hymnal. It is the work of artist Meg Hitchcock, who letter-by-letter, cuts up sacred texts and reformulates them into others, creating a compelling and transcendent fusion. She created the New Testament’s Book of Revelations from the Koran, the central religious text of Islam (look closely here)…
…and the African-American spiritual Michael Row Your Boat Ashore out of the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Hindu scripture (click here to zoom in), our favorite:
Until the age of thirty, Hitchock lived as a Born-Again Christian. “Fundamentalist Christians believe that the AntiChrist will rise out of Islam, will be a muslim” she explained in the short, not-great video below (most interesting for watching Hitchcock’s process and he words starting at 2:00). She saw the damage done by clashing fundamentalist religions – or any spiritual stance that holds itself up as the ‘one right path’. She found a means of expression that transforms that clash and antagonism, while providing a deeply meditative, devotional experience for herself, the part of her religious upbringing she seems to embrace.
Hitchcock transforms the taboo act of cutting apart religious texts – hacking them, really – into images with an alive, transformative quality…like a new kind of mandala. We’re going to print out her amazing take on Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, look at it a while, and see what happens…
via Design Boom
Related posts: madan kataria’s laughter yoga: laughing as a practice
the dalai lama on $$, loss, “failure”
1928 cartoon of the apocalypse (now rescheduled for october)
‘our atoms came from stars’ (neil degrasse tyson)
mind shift: the great bell chant
