by Dominique Mazeaud
I did not consider myself an activist when in 1986 I came together with artist eco-ceremonialist Donna Henes to collaborate on Peace: Piece by Piece. What drew us together was our shared passion for Peace. In our book, Donna and I covered the development of “creative activism” and the ordinary (supposed non-artist) people who pioneered this populist movement. We documented productive, participatory projects from all over the world, a softer, gentler approach of activism. ‘Gentle activism?’ Protest, after all, means to speak for: pro = in favor of, test = speak.
Me, not an activist? Yet, if you see activism as “efforts and actions taken to address social, political, economic, environmental and cultural issues,” I was one without knowing it. My activism came from my spiritual nature, and in retrospect I organically got into environmental, political and cultural issues.
In 1979, after ten years in the business of art, I was asking myself what is next in my path in art? In a very unexpected visionary experience, I was commanded to go on a quest to find the Spiritual in Art in our Time. Henceforth, armed with my curatorial soul, I actively sought artists who I intuitively felt were the current voices for the spiritual in art.
Why speak of activism and the spiritual in art at the same time, you may ask?
There are many forms of activism as there are many forms of the spiritual in art in our time. (It is no longer the abstract art predicated by Wassil Kandinsky in 1912). Both activism and spiritual art are growing fields, stretching their arms to embrace the other. We may well get acquainted with all their many forms, listen/learn from the ‘other,’ while pursuing our very own.
As a curator/quester, some of the key ingredients I have observed for spiritual art were compassion, interdisciplinarity, usefulness and participation. And then, in 1986, another surprise, I was called to speak as an artist. When you are called to pursue a certain path, you have to trust it wholly, go step by step and make stuff up as you go along.
I don’t know if my work can be called spiritual activism? Yet, whether environmentally-inclined or conflict-responding, it is certain that my passion for the Earth and for Peace have directed my work. Spirit is Oneness. As things are spiraling down, I am into “Peace of Earth.” (Thomas Berry). When yet another war, such as Israel/Palestine, threw me into a paralyzing despair and I was not able to do Tears of the World, my prayer/vigil performance, as I had done for Iraq and Ukraine before, I asked my mother, Earth, for solace. It became clear: She cannot flourish without a culture of Peace. So, on Peace Day 2024, I was able to stand on the Plaza of Santa Fe with the bowl of Tears of the World. TEARS OF JOY FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH. TEARS OF GRIEF FOR THE WARS BESIEGING THE EARTH.
Dominique Mazeaud is an artist whose ritual performances and installations are considered prayers. Her work in all forms reaches across art and the spiritual and celebrates the wonder of creation while mourning what has been lost or destroyed. Her passions are the Earth and Peace. She has written a memoir, The heartist’s Secret, hoping to get across that life is art and today art is for Earth’s sake