Yana Kuneva/Stanislav Dobrev – Bulgaria – Visual Arts and Installations
We are Yana Kuneva and Stanislav Dobrev. We don’t define ourselves as true artists we are only art explorers. Our participation in this year’s edition of the Art Residence was more likely a visual experiment and a personal experience for meditation practice, trough the creation of sand mandala.
The physical realization of the sand mandala was our endeavor to get close and experience the tantric tradition and ritual. At the same time we tried to create an artworks, which has it’s own esthetic value as an object of art.
Ritual Art- Time and Space
MANDALA AS TIME AND SPACE SYMBOL
Mandala was the first association with a visual/material symbol, when we heard the words “Time and Space”. Why Mandala and what does “Time and Space” mean to us?
Our physical perception is limited and our abstract way of thinking ends with the range of our human concepts, ideas and associations within the borders of the world we know. In this narrowness “Time and Space” are words lacking specific visualization, which we can only define trough certain symbolic meaning.
And a symbol is always associative, according to our knowledge for the world, religion, art, own and foreign tradition, everything that is part of human life.
If we choose to look at time and space, as a measuring point of ourselves, than this is “Us” here and now. We assume space as something objective – it is there, existing by itself, trough itself and for itself. We see space as “absolute” – a static, overall and endless substance. And time – it is something subjective, connected with movement and its intensity. In the word “time” are contained ideas for the past and future, which are interconnected. We put certain borders to our vision for past and future, as this is the only way we can embrace and understand them. This border is always the current moment – our own and personal one.
This is the reason we choose to believe, that human is the center of time and space – creator and observer.
Mandala is Sanskrit word for center. Mandala symbolism is very comprehensive and it has its own sacred geometrical structure. Mandala symbolizes harmony, time cycle of birth, death and rebirth, and also symbolizes infinity, but also entirety. It is universal symbol, representing the universe and as a physical substance-matter , the mandala is a separate spiritual space.
In one of the most complex teachings in the Tibetan tantric Buddhism – Kalachakra- are made Kalachakra mandalas. Kalachakra means “Wheel of time” and it refers to the concept of time and cycles.
The creation / and destruction / of mandala is not only a creative act, but also a way of meditation practice and performance of a ritual.
We chose to create our own unique mandala, based on the original Crown chakra mandala. Crown chakra is the highest chakra and it connects the individual with the Universe and the Absolute Mind. In the tantric tradition, if a person manages to unlock this chakra, his consciousness will transform into a transcendent form – out of the standard vision of time, space, borders and reality.
