Viktor L. Givens

The Vernacular Sublime

Abstract

Part ritual performance, part academic lecture the presentation is devised to examine how the domestic space serves as the fundamental threshold for spiritual communication, and catharsis. The presentation’s guiding question “how might a more expanded and paraphysical interpretation of the domestic site assist in cultural preservation and evolution. What happens when we see the curio cabinet, the kitchen, the knick knacks on the shelves, as something much more than clutter filling the corners, rather as atlas objects into the realm of the invisible.

Bio

Viktor Givens is a found object installation performance artist whose practice centers around the gathering and arrangement of ancestral objects to activate spaces for site specific public rituals. By connecting the material culture of his ancestors with pre and post modern spiritual theologies, le. Givens hopes to extend and reimagine the folk customs of his family . His material archive is comprised of the forgotten and discarded household items found during excavations of East Texas, Louisiana, Havana Cuba and Mexico City. . Through the accumulation of these rich cultural artifacts , le. Givens. seeks to create spaces that inspire the activation of cultural and spiritual memory.