Ecology of Grief: Embodied Practice and Astral Projection
This presentation will discuss the transformation of practice following an intense period of deep grief, the experience of which became a life-altering portal. Grief, conceptualised as an ecological entity; A dense, heavy, and strangely shaped interconnected system with connections to past experiences, past lives, former selves and beliefs, that awakened previous encounters that only through the process of astral projection have been understood and processed. Grief has provided a framework of psychic threads that connects practice with time, earth, space, and the liminality of being and not-being.
Combining techniques learned through becoming an initiate of the gnostic aural tradition of Hermetics, and recording her own iterations of astral journeying Annabel has constructed a realm within the astral plane. This realm is an ecosystem of subconscious and unconscious imagery, composed of landscapes, sacred spaces, and psychic destinations that represent Akashic pathways. At its heart lies a temple containing ‘doorways’ that lead to these otherworldly spaces, each tied to elements of grief, healing, and transformation. The work is an alchemical process, blending the personal ecology of grief with the wider ecological narrative of interconnectedness, healing and renewal.
By meticulously documenting visions, encounters, and events within these journeys, Annabel’s practice bridges the material and immaterial, creating a compounded reality where the ecology of grief unfolds as a transformative process, inviting deeper connections between self, ecosystems, and other realms.
Bio
Working across a number of different media including textiles, video, sound, ceramics, performance, sculpture and installation, Annabel Pettigrew’s practice uses meditation techniques that access the unconscious mind, manifesting in the imagined creation of astral realms and psychic landscapes, accessing these realms to create a visual language unique to the processing of lived experience relating to grief. Encountering portals and entities, this quest for enlightenment presents work made from materials that appear familiar initially, interweaving research through real-time pilgrimage to sacred sites, in an attempt to realise the astral realm, or visions encountered from within it, in material form. Annabel runs an artist collective called ‘Throes of Grief’, whose focus is to hold space for artists whose lives and practices have been transformed by grief.
annabelpettigrew.com
This presentation will discuss the transformation of practice following an intense period of deep grief, the experience of which became a life-altering portal. Grief, conceptualised as an ecological entity; A dense, heavy, and strangely shaped interconnected system with connections to past experiences, past lives, former selves and beliefs, that awakened previous encounters that only through the process of astral projection have been understood and processed. Grief has provided a framework of psychic threads that connects practice with time, earth, space, and the liminality of being and not-being.
Combining techniques learned through becoming an initiate of the gnostic aural tradition of Hermetics, and recording her own iterations of astral journeying Annabel has constructed a realm within the astral plane. This realm is an ecosystem of subconscious and unconscious imagery, composed of landscapes, sacred spaces, and psychic destinations that represent Akashic pathways. At its heart lies a temple containing ‘doorways’ that lead to these otherworldly spaces, each tied to elements of grief, healing, and transformation. The work is an alchemical process, blending the personal ecology of grief with the wider ecological narrative of interconnectedness, healing and renewal.
By meticulously documenting visions, encounters, and events within these journeys, Annabel’s practice bridges the material and immaterial, creating a compounded reality where the ecology of grief unfolds as a transformative process, inviting deeper connections between self, ecosystems, and other realms.
Bio
Working across a number of different media including textiles, video, sound, ceramics, performance, sculpture and installation, Annabel Pettigrew’s practice uses meditation techniques that access the unconscious mind, manifesting in the imagined creation of astral realms and psychic landscapes, accessing these realms to create a visual language unique to the processing of lived experience relating to grief. Encountering portals and entities, this quest for enlightenment presents work made from materials that appear familiar initially, interweaving research through real-time pilgrimage to sacred sites, in an attempt to realise the astral realm, or visions encountered from within it, in material form. Annabel runs an artist collective called ‘Throes of Grief’, whose focus is to hold space for artists whose lives and practices have been transformed by grief.
annabelpettigrew.com