Astral Invocations at Instituto Nacional Bellas Artes, CDMX
“Astral Invocations” was a site-specific performance and candle-lighting ritual in memory of victims of religious persecution. It was created for presentation at National Institute of Fine Arts: Laboratorio Arte Almeda (L.A.A.) in Mexico City which is housed in the former the San Diego Convent, where heretics were burned during the Mexican Inquisition. The ritual began with a silent energetic channeling sequence to open a portal and call in our ancestors who passed on this site. This was followed by a lighting of 108 candles whose heat turned 7 pinwheels with photosensors connected to an Arduino and computer. The movement of each pinwheel triggered its photosensor to call and sustain a specific frequency or sound associated with 7 chakras. Much of the ritual was a slow, meditative process of lighting each of the 108 candles and then putting them out. As more candles are lit and more pinwheels spin, the soundscape builds to a crescendo of all the 7 sounds together and then slowly descends back down to a venerative moment of silence. Many of the victims at this site were deemed heretics for practicing Judaism and so, during the candle lighting, Rosen sang Kel Maleh Rachamim, a traditional Hebrew prayer for souls of the departed.




