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May 9-15, 2002 art Elizabeth Doering
Elizabeth Doering: Midstream: An Homage to ChangeThrough May 26, Nexus Foundation for Today's Art-Community Gallery, 137 N. Second St., 215-629-1103 Elizabeth Doering is an anthropologist. She holds a BA degree in anthropology from Amherst College. She used ethnographic methods in interviewing subjects for The Church of Memory, installations she did in Cyprus in 2001. She did additional interviews for an upcoming CD recording of Cypriot refugees’ memories. But Doering is also a practicing archaeologist. She studied archaeology at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. She's worked in the trenches and assembled pottery at archaeological digs organized by Princeton, the University of Edinburgh and New York University. But what kind of anthropologist uses dowsing rods made of bent coat hangers ("I'm not very good with sticks") to locate energy foci for a shrine-like installation in Nexus' gallery? An archaeologist might spend months collecting damp chunks of used wood deposited along its banks by the Delaware River. She might scrupulously remove and save all metal parts, such as nails, screws and hinges. However, what archeologist would form her mud-patinaed finds into original sculptures joined with wooden pegs? Doering even places each sculpture's collected metal in a box, reminiscent in function of the canopic jar holding the innards of an Egyptian mummy. Elizabeth Doering: Each piece of wood reflects an individual intent. Somebody said, "I want this two-by-four for my dock." He put an eyehook and nails in it. [In time] it became part of the river. I take away the remains of the original intent [the metal bits] to emphasize the river's function on these pieces of wood. Then I build a box for them, a battery pack of collective energy that I reattach inside the sculpture. CP: Do you think of yourself as an artist? ED: I've always shied away from calling myself an artist, but "artist" is a primary self-definition because of the things that I notice and the connections that I make. It's also how I make my living.
CP: You've done a lot of work in Cyprus. In The Church of Memory installations at the Archangelos Michael Monastery in Monagri, you encircled one room with icon stands; however, the missing icons were represented through descriptions by Cypriot immigrants or refugees recorded on sound cards. ED: The sound cards contain memories of icons [last seen by the speaker in] the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s. I like the connection between voice and dirt, or earth. I was surprised how much you can hear from a person's voice longing for a particular patch of land. The once fertile ground still exists in memory. Even if the family is taken from its ancestral home, people have a repository in their common memory.
CP: What about religious objects drew your attention? ED: There are a couple of things I'm specifically interested in. The Orthodox Church is interesting to me because they have a very physical sense of spirituality. I was raised as a Protestant. Regular WASPs cast a suspicious eye at iconography -- crucifixes and that sort of thing. In Cyprus I started seeing these small unpretentious shrines that were adorned and adored. Then I started looking at veneration and thinking what does it mean to venerate an object? Not just a space but an object. I believe that there is a transformation of energy into an object that is related to human spirit -- not just in making it but in intentionally keeping it. An object that has been intentionally, meaningfully kept has another meaning than an object that has just been stored and put away.
CP: Would you call your installation at Nexus a shrine? ED: It's shrine-like because I believe in what I'm doing. I'm not saying something about shrines in general; I just want to build one. The beautiful thing about those shrines in Cyprus is that they're so unself-conscious. The icon gets loving, lavished attention unless it's damaged [by fire or a leaking roof for example]. Then even if it's very old, it's put in back. The more valuable something is, the more they tend to cover it. Looking at something too much makes it less special. Only when you're spiritually prepared, you lift up the curtain and kiss the icon.
CP: Right now you are the artist in residence at the Episcopal Cathedral of Philadelphia. What are your goals there? ED: I'm interested in making a bridge between the arts community and what goes on in a church. [Often today] the Protestant church is more interested in saving people -- giving them a baloney sandwich -- than saving souls. I don't think there's anything wrong with a baloney sandwich, but people need access to beauty. It's not just about filling their stomachs, it's about filling their eyes and their ears and their hearts.
CP: What's in the future? ED: I've been invited to the Armenian Biennale this summer and am raising money to go there. The way I get to travel is by getting grants and earning people's respect and God willing that continues.
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