UBC Day 6 - Healing the burning times

What an amazing way to enter 2022. 

 I visited this exhibition yesterday and took along a dear friend who I knew would connect at some level with the content. 

It is so much more than just another exhibition, as it includes a memorial room to honour all of the women and some men, who were executed or persecuted as witches during what is now being called the "burning times" though not all were killed by burning. It is not a historical exhibition as such, though it does inside the memorial room make reference to the facts of this period in history. 

 This quote below is from the website of the Silver Spoons Collective where you can visit to read more about this project and the resulting exhibition and the healing work that is happening with regard to the intergenerational trauma from the European Witch Hunts of 1450-1750. Half of the money raised is being donated to charities working to stop modern day witch hunts in Africa and India. 

"The Medicine Spoon Memorial is a creative and collaborative art memorial led by artist Caren Thompson. It intends to honour and acknowledge the women who were persecuted as witches in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales during the European Witch Hunts of 1450-1750.

The memorial will individually honour and remember the 4000+ women whose names lay forgotten in trial records. For over a year, Caren has been inviting others to join her in this creative journey of remembrance. Opening the project up to others has been a beautiful opportunity to heal the sisterhood wound as over 1000 women from around the world have stepped through through the doorway of collaboration and co-creation.

Using the symbol of a medicine spoon printed on to pieces of pre-loved fabric, a wise woman's (witch) name is written onto the fabric and decorated in whatever style or medium the co-creator wishes to use. ​ The completed name has then been returned to Caren for stitching together as a vast collection of prayer flags." 

I cannot begin to put into my own words here, how I experienced the Memorial and the Exhibition though the women who have worked together on this project and who were present to curate, kept asking me that question. 

 As the exhibition consisted of the most beautiful installations from each of the women, and offered visitors the chance to immerse themselves and respond to questions the art and other creations provoked, I did take part in writing responses and took away some questions to work on at home. 

 I do intend to go back again to visit and maybe take one of the workshops available. 

 For me it is a work in progress as to how I will continue my own personal healing journey. 

Perhaps I will write more about it here in this space.

I hope that some of my UK readers will be interested in visiting the exhibition if it goes on tour later in the year.