Project Description

Seven Valleys 2019. Iron, aluminium, ceramic, rubber and glass. 7 mobile sculptires of about 0,9 x 2,3 x 2,5 m. each.

This project is inspired by the Conference of the Birds, a poem by the Persian 12th century poet and mystic Farid ud-Din Attar. The poem uses a journey by a group of birds, led by a hoopoe bird as an allegory of a Sufi master leading his pupils to enlightenment.
The journey of the birds takes them through the seven valleys of the quest, love, understanding, independence and detachment, unity, astonishment, and finally poverty and nothingness.
Like the birds of this story, we may take flight together, but the journey itself will be different for each of us.
We will only be able to help migrants, as well humans as birds, when we ourselves are open to learn from our personal ‘journey’

“The home we seek is in eternity;
The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea,
Of which your paradise is but a drop.
This ocean can be yours; why should you stop
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secrets of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourself with motes trapped in its beams.
Turn to what truly lives, reject what seems —
Which matters more, the body or the soul?
Be whole: desire and journey to the Whole.”

(small extract of the Conference of the birds)