Sacred Discernment
AN EXHIBITION BY Viola Bordon
Exhibition Runs NOVEMBER 1 -19
About the exhibition:
On January 6th, 2021, the US Capitol building came under attack. I had heard many stories of coups, and as a child of missionaries, I had friends who experienced them firsthand. I wasn’t sheltered from the death tolls associated with unstable governments, and naturally that grew into fear. I never expected to experience that fear while in the United States, and was deeply unnerved as reports started coming in. Banners that read “Jesus is my Savior” were touted as a political ideology by those who wanted to bypass our system of civil liberty. This was not a religiosity that aimed to serve widows and orphans- a core tenet of christianity, as I understood my faith. Instead it was an idea fostered within religious bodies that aimed to consolidate power at any cost. It is a cancer that grew unchecked in our religious communities. Like cancer, it camouflages itself within the body, feeding off the protection and incubation of its host. This illness growing within a Christian framework is shared in our homes, around the dinner table, on a walk to the park, and at bedtime.
These quilts look at interconnected ideologies, prevalent within the church, which have led to a transferring of personal power and discernment to larger systems. one to wear, one to wash, one to mend considers the idea of monasticism as the safe location for female sexuality. Pact quotes text from an evangelical marriage retreat in 2005, where spouses are asked to literally sign over consent to one another, regardless of the situation. And the final work I will not listen to the music of your harps highlights the consolidation of religio-political power through the Moral Majority, and Ronald Regan, whose slogan was Let's Make America Great Again. Political pushes towards abstinence only education, and the recent striking down of Roe Vs. Wade can be traced to this period.
Church quilting circles, prevalent across many denominations, form feminized craft refuges. This highly overlooked medium is a small way in which autonomy has ben regained. Quilting presented itself as a perfect site for a reflection on the role of the female body within the cultural, political, and religious space surrounding Christianity and its extreme cousin white Christian Nationalism.
The exhibition will be on view in Gallery 2 at Da Vinci Art Alliance from November 1 - November 19 with an opening reception on Saturday, November 4th from 4 - 7pm and a closing artist talk on Sunday, November 19 from 12-2pm.
ABOUT the artist:
Viola Bordon is a Philadelphia-based artist and educator who works with sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and fibers. Her research speaks directly to her art practice; one that is intricately connected to craft, landscape and ideology. Bordon’s work with fibers relies on pre-industrial craft histories of weaving and quilting, while her work with landscape suggests question about sourcing, over-consumption, and human impact on the environment. These interests have led her to her current endeavor, a Fulbright in Nepal investigating craft’s adaptation to the environment through disasters like earthquakes, glacial outburst flooding and climate catastrophes. Her work synthesizes research and material exploration questioning stability and interrelationships. Bordon graduated with an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis as a transfer student from St. Louis Community College.