Immaterial, Material, Immaterial (The Void) results from my search for spirituality, the focus of my research and practice for the MA.
My search for spirituality began from church architecture, particularly Baroque church architecture. Having been brought up in Malta, a Catholic country, spirituality is taught to be found only through religion. However, everyday scenes of lavish and excessive material display inside the church building made me dissatisfied with the church’s promise of spirituality.
I realised that the search for the spiritual, that ideal state, was not a collective act led by an institution but an individual act.
This I began dispensing with what I though was materially excessive inside the church building to arrive at what was materially essential for the conveyance of spirituality. My quest was to establish order in chaos to pave a way for the spiritual.
The fundaments of the material which I viewed to be basic forms, such as the circle, appeared to be the ultimate material essentiality. Nevertheless, I had to penetrate deeper. The walls of the church building had to be dismantled, the circle had to be destroyed. It was not a sudden act, but one I had been carefully doing for a long time.
Walls were brought down slowly, stone by stone; the basic material forms were gradually pierced to arrive at the core.
The core is the fundament of the fundamental.
But is the core material?
Is it filled, or empty, hollow… a void?
Is the void made up of no-thing… nothingness?
Is it infinite or miniscule and can it be found and seen?
Is it the void that embodies the material?
Is the void the spiritual?
Is it the spiritual that holds the material existence?
Maxine Attard
13th June 2011
