In the Lands of Knowledge
In de Landen van Kennis
by Sen McGlinn + Sonja van Kerkhoff, 2006
dvd (video with music by Sandy Hoover), 4 min.
Still from the dvd
The spoken text comes from the Seven Valleys, a Sufi-like text by Baha'ullah, that in the DVD shown in the exhibition in Utrecht is spoken in Dutch by a Turkish man and in Turkish by a Dutch woman, clearly distinguishable by their accents. This work is partly about the awareness of influence, and accents are a clear indication of this.
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The text is this: By My life, O friend, were you to taste of these fruits, from the green garden of these blossoms which grow in the lands of mystic knowledge, beside the brilliance of the lights of the Essence in the mirrors of names and attributes -- yearning would seize the reins of patience and reserve from your hand, and make your soul shake with the flashing light, and draw you from the earthly homeland to the first divine homeland in the Center of Realities, and lift you to a plane wherein you would soar in the air even as you walk upon the earth, and move over the water as you run on the land.