pr: the crystal express

Inspired by “The Conference of the Birds” a Persian poem about 7 birds who travel across 7 valleys in an esoteric search which trigger memories deep within us, this work, written as a script and directed as a series of interventions, titled “The Crystal Express”; took the form of a 14 day train journey investigating the nature of connectivity. Samina selected 7 artists from her collective “the rabbit hole” to join her in traveling across Western and Eastern Europe, starting in Barcelona then Paris, Berlin, Gyoma, Bucharest, Istanbul and ending in the holy land.

The collective investigated the dissolving of layers of constructed realities.

During the 14 day performative research pilgrimage, the artists unraveled, deconstructed, and disconnected, tapping into universal sensibilities, what the group call magic consciousness, and like the birds in the Fariduddin Attar’s Sufi fable “The Conference of the Birds” relied on their wit and the power of improvisation to tell the stories of the places they visited as these stories unfolded. Through staged provocations, philosophical inquiry and storytelling, the group immersed themselves in the deconstructive nature of myth and pilgrimage. 

While creating a means for artists to explore the magical realism of archetypal journeys, they traveled as a community. The idea of the project was that each was free to immerse themselves in the cultural and philosophical inquiries that typically emerge through independent travel, but that they ultimately worked as a collective to awaken their inspirations.

The journey was created with the purpose of seducing the senses and challenging the way we perceive and connect to the people, places and the things around us.

“The project’s theme is about essence. provoking essence, capturing essence. A crystal sparkle, a core essence that passes through us, a magic moment, and our quest is to illuminate it, capture it, communicate it. Traveling from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and then the Middle East, a land once connected, fluid, has been challenged by paradigms like politics, economics, religion, we will unravel this, exploring connectivity and tapping into essence.” - SV