Onions, flamingos, mushrooms and the apparition of the woman of knowledge.
L'installazione e la performance di Judith (Germania 1973, vive e lavora a Monaco), prendono spunto
da una visita dell'artista al famoso Museo Antropologico di Mexico D.F., ma soprattutto dalla vita di
María Sabina (1888 - 23 nov.1985) una curandera mazateca che visse la sua intera vita in un umile
dimora nel Messico meridionale praticando la medicina utilizzando diverse specie di funghi psilocybe,
i “funghi sacri”. Lo pseudo Museo Antropologico ricreato da Judith, mostra gli abiti sciamanici
provenienti da una sconosciuta tribù indigena. Esposti, si vedranno il vestito della donna sciamana, il
copricapo di uno stregone (Flamingo Mask) e vari oggetti rituali connessi al culto del fungo praticato
dalla tribù, che rappresentano la profonda connessione con le forze della Natura. La sera della
presentazione l'Onion Costume, verrà indossato: la sua struttura a cipolla in diversi strati sovrapposti
sarà svelata in un lento rituale musicato, rivelando - in un'apparizione di pochi istanti - una figura mitica.
Una buona dose di umorismo e autoironia sono parte delle investigazioni condotte dell'artista.
 Judith Egger
This installation/performance has been inspired by the life of María Sabina (1888 - November 23, 1985), a Mazatec medicine woman who lived her whole life in a modest dwelling in southern Mexico. Her practice was based on the use of the various species of native psilocybe mushrooms.
Sabina was the first contemporary Mexican curandera (shaman) to allow Westerners to participate in the healing ritual known as the velada, where all participants partake of the psilocybe mushroom as a sacrament to open the gates of the mind. The velada is seen as a purification and as a communion with the sacred.
She revealed the long kept secrets of her tribe to the world (a western anthropologist called Gordon Wasson. By doing so she accidentally attracted huge crowds of hippy magic mushroom tourists and travellers to her village, who treated it „as a little rural Disney land for New-agers“ * and who were seeking a personal short cut trip to god/spiritual enlightenment.
While she was initially hospitable to the truth seekers, their lack of respect for the sacred and traditional purposes caused Sabina to remark, "Before Wasson, nobody took los niños (the mushrooms) simply to find God. They were always taken to cure the sick."
She also felt that the ceremony of the velada had been desecrated and irremediably polluted by the hedonistic use of the mushrooms: "From the moment the foreigners arrived, the 'holy children' lost their purity. They lost their force, they ruined them. Henceforth they will no longer work. There is no remedy for it."
(*„Clock Woman in the land of mixed feelings: the place of Maria Sabina in mexican culture“
Heriberto Yépez, ubu-web)
Another inspiration for the project had been my vivit to the famous anthropological museum in Mexico D.F.
Anthropological Museum display
Onions, flamingos, mushrooms and
the apparition of the woman of knowledge
The (pseudo) anthropological museum at O’, shows the shamanistic dresses of an unknown indigenous tribe.
In the display one can see the dress of a woman of knowledge and that of a sorcerer (flamingo mask). In addition one can see various sacred ritualistic objects connected to the mushroom cult of this tribe which signifies the cult´s strong connection to the powers of nature.
On the opening evening, the „onion costume“ will be worn by a woman (Kaja!). In the beginning it will be a closed form consisting of many layers of fabric which will slowly be unveiled like a ritual, accompanied by music
and light. In the end Kaja will be seen as a symbol of a woman of knowledge, a mythical figure, which is unveiled just for a very short period of time - like an apparition.
The big hat of the onion costume signifies (a part of) the invisible but nevertheless very powerful energetic body of knowledge that surrounds every human being in several layers. The physical body of a person is just one part of her/his existence.
Like the mushroom, who consists mainly out of a huge underground fungus mycelium. Only the smallest part of the mushroom is actually sticking out of the ground to be seen.
„life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only one single summer. Then it withers away – an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilisation we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom which passes.
The rhizome remains.“
C.G. Jung Memories, Dreams, Reflections
New York, Vintage Books, 1965, p4
(I have ambigous feelings towards anthropological museums. They signify the modern double-edged western relationship to its own roots. On the one hand side it is a very valueable experience to gain an insight into the way of life of cultures that are very distant in time and space to the one we live in. On the other hand dead or almost extinct cultures are often on display and therefore death can be felt. Some of these cultures have even died much quicker because of the museums who want to display them.
That applies also to the traveller or scientist who strives to find hidden cultures and remote places, studies them, exports objects – and leaves behind disturbance.
It is a tragic relationship: by the urge to understand and then preserve the very thing we are fascinated by we are destroying it. I am aware that the extinction of ancient cultures and knowledge has other reasons in addition to this.)
In this work I circle around the topic of the spiritual relation between man and the world and the connection to eternal knowledge (C.G.Jungs „rhizome“).
Since our own culture does not promote or teach how to get this connection (anymore) there is an urge and longing for the knowledge of idigenous tribes who have kept a much closer, natural relationship to it.
Simultaneously I do not simply want to romaticize or idealise primordial societies and their knowledge - therefore a certain amount of humour and self-irony is part of my investigation.
I do not intend to make the point that society should move backwards but want to focus on unveiling this knowledge which could be an important factor for mankind to evolve further
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