EXHIBITION: Paul Roorda
"Congregation of the Ambivalent"

April 11 - April 23, 2007


Opening Reception:

Friday, April 13, 7- 10 PM; Artists' talks Sun April 22, 3 PM

Performance Poetry @ Propeller Wed April 18
doors open 7:30 PM
$5 cover (goes to poets)
8 PM performance
Amanda Hiebert, Spencer, Leviathan, Krystal Mullin
there will also be an open mic

   
Exhibitions    
   
   
   
   
     
    Congregation of the Ambivalent is an installation of more than fifty altered Bibles. For this project, a set of pew Bibles discarded by a local congregation has been reclaimed: The pages of each book have been individually wrinkled then smoothed flat by volunteers with varying degrees of devotion and ambivalence towards the Christian church. In this exploration of religious ritual each page is damaged, instead of read, to create a Bible in which the pages force the cover open and yet, at the same time, press against each other so that the text cannot be read. Each Bible is transformed into a new object, one of beauty and contradiction. The sacred is challenged by the profane, and embraced by it. The Bibles have become art, yet are still sacred texts. Tradition persists, but only wrapped in ambivalence.