FEAR COLLECTING RITUAL: A Fools Journey

Tomorrow night (02/18) marks the first stop in Lucien Shapiro’s latest traveling project, Fear Collecting Rituals: A Fools Journey. It will be accompanied by a film screening in collaboration with Shaun Roberts, a live performance, sound bath and other musings with the good homie Gaslamp Killer. If any of the amazing weirdness you’re about to read below interests you, come out to The Merrick Building tomorrow night at 7pm. No late lurkers allowed in after 8:15pm.

 

Shapiro travels to various regions, performing two rituals that focus on the collecting and relinquishing of fear and the journey of finding self and light. He will begin his project with a debut at Hashimoto Contemporary and travel towards the East Coast from the West Coast. The event will start with a film screening that takes on a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil exploration of slowly losing the senses and an attempt to regain what was lost, starring Lucien himself and his sculptures.

After that, a new Film screening will show titled, “Fear is the Mind Killer.” This is a ritual performed and filmed and will address those greatest challenges each of us face in our lives. The Fear Ritual symbolizes one’s ability to relinquish the doubt and despair that prevent us from conquering and moving forward on our personal journeys. In this ritual, the mask-wearer will place the “Relinquishing Vessel” in front of himself, kneel and repeatedly dip the glimmering stone hanging from his mask into the vessel while chanting “I release you.” After a healthy repetition of the chant, mask-wearer stares at the reflective liquid into his eyes, feeling the escape of fears into the vessel. Mask-wearer then pours the vessel’s contents in a circle around him, and through a long meditative sleep amongst relinquished fears, conquers his challenges in order to progress.

During these rituals, Shapiro will ask participants to write down one or two of their greatest fears to place to the Relinquishing Fear Vessel. Shapiro will then carry those fears along his journey until his destination to New York where he will begin his new journey of life. Once he has arrived, he will perform one last fear cleansing ritual of the many fears he has collected over the course of his journey.

Here’s some more of Lucien’s work to give you a feel of what you might expect during tomorrow’s happenings.

 

 

See more of Lucien Shapiro’s work on IG and lucienshapiro.com