Bahá´í Related Stuff
In relation to my own art | The Bahá´í Faith + the arts | Bahá´í related essays or presentations | Bahá´í Related Links
What is the Bahá'í Faith?
- Diverse Bahá´ís: an unfinished website I started making in Dutch and English for my local Bahá´í community. One day I'll change this into a website reflecting diverse Bahá´í viewpoints from around the world, because that's more what my own Bahá´í community experience is.
- What is a Bahá´í? | Wat is een Bahá´í?: gives a brief run down of some basic beliefs supported with short quotations from the Bahá´í writings. The same website has pages on: Bahá´u´lláh, The Báb, Bahá´í Scripture, Bahá´í Activities, as well as some Facts and Figures
- Bahá'í Rants, a blog run by Baquia where I often make comments and occasionally write a column. Anyone can add comments. Search for me there using "sonja".
- Sen McGlinn's Blog Sen's blogs tend towards the theological / metaphysical. He also has some postings on various topics indexed here and since 2008 he has rua a blog here: senmclinn.wordpress.com.
Bahá´ís believe in God.
My personal interpretation: some sort of supreme intelligence, not male! and more akin to the idea of the forces of nature rather than something human-like.
The Bahá´í; writings refer to religion as a tool for aiding spiritual development (in the here and now) rather than as an end in itself.
Bahá´ís come in all shapes and sizes.
In terms of my own approach as a Bahá´í I am at the liberal end of the scale, most likely having more in common with humanists than even fellow Bahá´ís on many topics.
The Bahá´í Faith aims to be global, celebrates diversity and the use of the intellect, and like any religion or system, nothing is static nor perfect. And as a tool, being a Bahá´í pushes me to stretch myself in various ways. An area of particular concern to me is equality for LGBT Bahá´ís. See my blog: Just A Bahai.
The Bahá'í Faith in relation to my own art
- A visual essay looking at various themes in my work, including the Bahá´í Teachings. Written in 1998 in connection with an exhibition on Dutch contemporary art at the Vishal, Haarlem, it covers my work between 1989-1998.
It starts: My identity as a Bahá´í and as an artist are closely tied. I encountered the Bahá´í Faith in my first year of art school and then joined the Bahá'í community a year later when I was twenty years old in 1981.
My art has diversified a lot since then as has my understanding of what it means to call oneself a Bahá´í...
A lot of my work is influenced by my interpretations of the Bahá´í teachings, sometimes I use actual quotations from the Bahá´í writings in my work but other other works addressing inequality, injustice or the meditative are of course just much an influence due to my Bahá´í beliefs.
- Art as a Creative Process - some aspects from the Bahá´í Writings, a slideshow of my own work and some text relating this to a Bahá´í context presented since 2000 in various venues. The text here is a version from 2004. In 2009 I started also giving a talk that was more focussed on my artworks and the ideas behind them rather than using quotations.
- Virtue of the Rose | Deugd van de roos, 1993, Give and Take, 1995 The Gossamer Prison, 2004 He Paepae Hou (New Vessels) - in the mirrors of all the worlds, 2011
Some artworks incorporating quotations or text from the Bahá´í writings
The Bahá´í Faith + the arts
- In 1989 I joined BAFA - the Bahá´í Association for the Arts: run by some European-based artists which organized gatherings and ran a newsletter. Arts Dialogue was a quarterly magazine I co-edited between 1991 - 2002. It evolved from 4 photocopied pages to being a printed on an off-set press three times a year with 24 pages. See the website for some back issues.
We are working on a book (Just Let the Wind) to be published soon. - The arts in an optimal society, slide presentation given at the Association Bahá´í Studies Conference: Models for an Optimal Society, Waikato University, Hamilton, July, 2000.
- Gendered categories, A multi-media presentation for the 1995 English Speaking European Bahá´í Studies special interest "Gender" conference, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.
- Opthalmology, various approaches to the arts in our post-modern times. A slide presentation at the 1994 / 1995 Young Professionals Forum, Landegg, Switzerland.
- A perspective on the Bahá´í Faith and the Arts, 1994, initially written for the Bahá´í Encyclopedia (which was not published). Printed in the June 1994, BAFA newsletter.
The Bahá´í related essays or presentations
- Rewriting the Script. A visual essay on gender and the Bahá´í Teachings written in 2000 for a World Order issue on gender (not published).
- Gendered categories, A multi-media presentation for the 1995 English Speaking European Bahá´í Studies special interest "Gender" conference, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.
- Feminism as a means towards diversity, 1994 English Speaking European Bahá´í Studies, U.K.
Some Bahá´í Related Links
- Tbe Bahá´í International Community - It summarizes the Bahá´í teachings, has links to material in many languages as well as a lot of Scripture, articles, news and other information.
- My Just a Bahai blog.
- Bahais-online A portal for a diversity of Bahá´í related activities, blogs, etc from around the globe. Run by Steve Marshall.
- Kalimat Press: lots of interesting books.