PSYCHIC SENSE WORKSHOP
4 July, Saturday, 14.00 - 16.00
Seminar Room 1, Sackler Centre, V&A Museum
Free workshop, booking required as places are limited.
Contact the V&A bookings office on 020 7942 2211.
Suitable for 18 years and over
Take part in research for the work of International Print Artist-in-Residence Mona Choo in this Psychic workshop. Watch as the psychic ‘reads’ objects from the Museum’s collection to find out if objects have energetic memory, and whether the stories of their owners and makers can be revealed by the psychic seer.
The Residency Programme supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
More information about the aims of the workshop:
As part of her residency proposal, Mona is investigating the idea of
humans leaving an imprint of themselves in the things they have touched,
and in the spaces they have occupied. Her fascination with metaphysics
and quantum theories inspired her to design the workshop around this
concept. Through this she hopes to create work that will communicate to
people the idea that we are more than just our physical bodies.
Joseph Rhodes Buchanan, an American physiologist, developed a theory
from his studies, that “all things give off an emanation. These
emanations contained a sort of record of the history of the object.
Buchanan believed that objects recorded senses and emotions and these
could be played back in the mind of the psychometric seer.”
Buchanan coined the term ‘psychometry’ in 1842, to mean ‘reading objects
by touch’. Whenever we handle an object we are laying down information
about ourselves on that object. “Just as a photograph may be taken on
film or plate and remain invisible until it has been developed, so may
those psychometric "photographs" remain impalpable until the developing
process has been applied. That which can bring them to light is the
psychic faculty and mind of the medium”, he said.
Mona is hoping to gather more information about whether there is any
evidence of objects in the V&A, and the museum building itself,
containing a memory/memories of their past owners and past lives.
The aim of the workshop is to see if the psychic medium, through being
near or at times being in contact with particular objects, will be able
to sense any residual energy from the objects and read their stories.
Anything more will be a bonus.
Says the artist: "This exercise is to try and make the collections more
relelvant and accessible to the public, particularly from an emotional
and psychological viewpoint rather than the usual aesthetic or
informational viewpoint, and to enhance their narrative by giving them a
place in someone's life whose story can be unraveled by the psychic
medium."
Mona hopes that there will be some results form the psychic to suggest
that certain objects do indeed have a form of 'spirit' or stored
residual energy from their makers or owners. The psychic may also be
able to sense residual energy from the Museum building itself, which is
rich in it's own history.
For more information on Mona's residency work, check out her blog at
www.vam.ac.uk/monachoo
International Print Artist in Residence
Studio 1, Sackler Centre
Victoria and Albert Museum
Tel: 7942 2853
