I’m extremely honored to have been invited to create the 2023 Lenten Cloth for the magnificent St. Stephansdom Cathedral in Vienna, for one of the most beautiful and mysterious Gothic Cathedrals!
My Human Cocoon "landed" yesterday at the Lenten Cloth over the High Altar of the famous St. Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna, exactly one year after it reached - in its micro version- the final frontier of the human habitat, the International Space Station at Earth Low Orbit. What does it have to convey now?
Human Cocoon acts as a TOTEM for the many and often unseen ways by which we are connected. The half-white, half-black figure is reminiscent of a battery where one side is the cathode, and the other side is the anode.
Appearing like an ancient hieroglyph and at the same time as a futuristic being it serves as a contemporary 'emoji' and stands for what it means to be a human: to be an active and irreplaceable element in the delicate lace web of life. When one thread breaks, all the threads oscillate and the pattern readjusts, adapts.
My thanks to all the people who joined the Human Cocoon's opening!
What did Human Cocoon say to them?
...expressing through my short performance...
My thanks to everyone who helped to make this project possible, especially Dompharer Toni Faber, Dombaumeister Zehetner, the whole Dombauhütte and St Stephansdom Team, all the technicians , all the sponsors and everyone who took part in the revealing of Human Cocoon.
With Toni Faber, the Dompriest of the Vienna's Stephansdom.
With the technicians who mounted my 12m by 6m Human Cocoon Lenten Cloth.
With Dr. Bernard Foing, the former chief scientist of ESA and the spiritus agens behind the Moon Gallery art ideas including my Earthling Tattoo Seal alias Human Cocoon, reaching the International Space Station exactly a year ago.
My great thanks to Toni Faber, Barbara Kremžer, Dr. Gabriela Koschaetzky-Elias, Dr. Erwin Uhrmann and Dr. Gerd Silberhumer for their valuable thoughts expressed in regards to Human Cocoon, my Lenten Cloth 2023 for the magnificent St. Stephan's Cathedral:
Special thanks to the team at the AKH in Vienna (Dr. Gerd Silberhumer and Dr. Helmuth Haslacher) for their collaboration in enabling me to attain and mix the blood of an artist (myself), scientist, and priest into a triptych of red blood cells, serving as a nest for my cocoon.
Erwin Uhrmann: “Eva Petric mixed the blood of three people who represent art, science and religion - three pillars that have been in a constantly changing relationship marked by strong tensions for centuries. …The enlarged microscopic view, extended to 72 square meters, is a sober one, in its abstract, ambiguous form it stands for enlightenment in a room full of mysteries, as well as for the mystery in an enlightened world, a researched substance and a ritual ingredient which art also takes up again and again, such as Hermann Nitsch throughout his life. In Eva Petric's Lenten Cloth, the blood is a symbol of life migrating between these degrees, the rational and the irrational, trust and fear, protection, and vulnerability." (Excerpt from: Die Schutzhülle der Existenz -Zu Eva Petrics Fastentuch im Stephansdom - Pfarrblatt St. Stephans)
On April 8th Human Cocoon puzzle will disassemble and reassemble into Butterfly@ArtScienceSpirituality, three butterflies representing Art, Science, and Spirituality, or Love, Hope and Faith, the distinctive features of Homo sapiens - that will float below the cathedral ceiling till June 5th, 2023.
Kindly invited to visit Human Cocoon, day or night till April 7th.
Eva
My Human Cocoon echoed today in some of the leading Austrian media:
From Ash Weddensday Mass: