The Living Altar
a community project honoring the sacred in the everyday through art
The Living Altar is a community project that invites participants to honor and ground into the sacred in the everyday by exploring what matters to them through the creative process.
At the culmination of the project the finished works are arranged in a collaborative installation—
a community altar.
Works are representations of people, places, objects, animals–that inspire, connect us to our ancestors, our purpose, they are the things that we love & cherish, the things that make everyday life meaningful.
Works can be paintings, drawings, sculpture, poetry, fiber, and dance or other performance. They are what each artist interprets as an essential representation of the chosen subject: meaning they represent the essence of it.
Each Living Altar will be documented and included on the Living Altar website. Participants will be invited to submit artist statements & pose for a photo with their work to be included in the online exhibit.
The vision is to document the pilot project in partnership with an organization and then offer the facilitation of The Living Altar Project to other communities & organizations locally, regionally, nationally, and globally, creating materials & resources along the way, to be able to invite communities to lead the projects themselves and enter their documented works to be included in the online archive.
The Living Altar is for all people, of all ages & backgrounds, experiences, & artistic abilities. All that needed is a desire to contemplate what gives their life personal meaning, the willingness to engage in the creative process, and the desire to have their work displayed in the community altar.
The ultimate goal of this project is to create community dialogue and celebration around what we cherish here on Earth, in this experience as humans, in our bodies.
It is an invitation to ground into the sacredness of the experiences we are all living, right now.
for more information, email emily@autonomousmuse.com