Visit the archive at Godisahumanarchive.cargo.site
God is a Human Archive was inspired by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston's curatorial project 100 Artists See God. I stumbled across this project after pondering how notions of God, belief, spirituality, etc. seem somewhat absent in conversations surrounding contemporary art and film. This lack of recognition felt odd in that aesthetics historically played a powerful role in upholding state and religious control which, a long time ago, across many cultures, were one and the same. This is furthuer complicated by religious aesthetics heavy handed part in legacies of imperialism and colonialism. Concurrently, I became fascinated by how these ideologies are more present during COVID-19, tracing the patterns of belief through global pandemics in history, i.e. how in Pre-Renaissance Europe during the black plague skepticism rose in the church when high ranking priests began falling ill. These explorations alongside my own spiritual quest led to a need to understand how belief manifests on a personal level.
Thus, the project began as a net archive of one’s personal representations of God sent via email. A representation can be defined by, but is not limited to, an image, sound, drawing, sculpture, writing, video, a picture of a pet, near death experience, an angry rant, explanation of evolution, the deity that you praise, your religious affiliated iconography, a prayer, anything that falls into the category of creating the image of God for you. Whether one holds their beliefs within a religion, science, energy, mankind, aliens, atheism, Jeff Bridges, etc. all of us have our own understanding of God.
Contribution to the archive can be sent to godahumanarchive@gmail.com
