Soul Seeking with Shana Moulton and Min Wong
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CEMENT FONDU
Shana Moulton (left); Min Wong (right). Courtesy the artists. Photo (Min Wong): Jacquie Manning.
Shana Moulton (left); Min Wong (right). Courtesy the artists. Photo (Min Wong): Jacquie Manning.
From Buddhist rituals to astrology, Shana Moulton and Min Wong's spiritual journeys started from a young age. Both artists address contemporary pathways to self-fulfilment, their promises and limitations, across video, installation, and performance.
From this commonality, their works were brought together at Cement Fondu in Sydney, Australia, for the exhibition space's fourth annual international pairing: Soul Seeker: Shana Moulton x Min Wong (13 August–2 October 2022). In this conversation, staged by Cement Fondu, the artists elaborate on their early influences, motivations, and motifs.
With a practice that draws from feminist spirituality, New York-based Shana Moulton grew up in a small town on the Bible Belt of California before moving to study art and anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was exposed to alternative practices and Californian interpretations of Eastern beliefs.
Among Moulton's early influences is an astrologer uncle who joined a cult in the late 1950s. Star signs, talismans, and ritualist performance are prominent within the artist's work, notably manifesting as two shrine-like installations framed by crystals and lamps at Cement Fondu, with a celestial female figure at their centre.
But for the last 22 years, Moulton's work has focused on an alter ego named Cynthia, a hypochondriac suffering from agoraphobia, modelled after herself. Confined between the four walls of her home decorated with 1960s kitsch, Cynthia seeks purpose through cosmetic rituals, home decor, and exercise regimens.
Enacted by the artist herself in the video series 'Whispering Pines' (2002–ongoing), the character was first conceived from medical dresses Moulton made during art school. Imagining a body for the garment, she came up with a blend of herself, her mother, and grandmother.
'She's just me when I'm alone in the bathroom, wondering what the meaning of life is and what beauty product will make me look better,' Moulton says. As the artist explains, it's not about the act of wellness itself, but the possibility of acquiring some kind of practice.
Sydney-based Min Wong, whose work draws from contemporary spirituality from the 1970s onwards, was also exposed to different faiths growing up. Her father was an Evangelical Christian who partook in Buddhist and Daoist rituals, while the artist's own search for meaning has spanned yoga, Bikram, and CrossFit.
Inspired by the latter, Wong's recent installation at the 2022 Adelaide Biennale, Namaslay (2022), comprised a dimly-lit exercise room that resembled a torture chamber from afar, where metal shelves shaped after witchcraft-like symbols housed meditation books and crystals.
A neon-lit sign on the wall urged to 'Free Your Inner Guru', while a framed image suggested that 'sweat is just fat crying', in an equally eerie font. Neon returned to Cement Fondu, this time depicting a yogi performing an upward dog.
These activities are meditative, but the peace never lasts, the artist says. Extending Wong's inquiry into the commodification of contemporary spirituality is her new installation Lone Wolf (2022), commissioned by Cement Fondu.
For Lone Wolf, Wong recovers the motif of exercise as discipline to create a jungle-gym setup under red light, as though an obstacle course toward permanent existential relief. The installation explores the relationship between the Guru and devotee through the complexities of human nature and its relationships.
In the following conversation, Shana Moulton and Min Wong speak about the inspirations behind their work, recurring symbols and signs within their practices, and the motivations behind their own spiritual inquiries, as reflected through their installations at Cement Fondu.
QHow do your personal histories filter into your practices?
MWMy father is Chinese and my mother is Australian. My father did a bit of Chinese ritual and ancestral worship with a background from Daoist or Buddhist traditions. He also grew up Catholic and came to Australia when he was younger, where he met my mother. She was Christian, but then got involved in Evangelical Christianity.
So I grew up with two different ways of belief and ritual: one was evangelistic, and the other was rooted in Chinese culture. I didn't know it at the time, but this really influenced my experience. I searched for different ways to look at the world from having both these faiths put onto me during my childhood, and then it fed into my art practice.
SMI grew up in a really small Christian town between Yosemite National Park and Fresno, on the Bible Belt of California. It was really conservative, but my parents weren't religious. I went to college at Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay area and was exposed to all these religious or spiritual practices—you know, the sort of new-age California-filtered version of Eastern practices or appropriated practices.
It was exciting to leave a Christian area and go to a more open, varied environment. In terms of childhood, the media was a big influence. My Christian town banned MTV when I was five, back when it had just started. But there were things like Pee-wee's Playhouse, which was a big children's show that was like an experimental art show. I was 13 or 14 when Twin Peaks (1990) started, which was big for me.
QWhy explore new-age culture and spirituality?
MWI have always looked at spirituality in my own world, having lived in different remote places and tried different spiritual paths. I do yoga, Bikram, and CrossFit, and weirdly tend to go to those extremes—not that I've been in a cult, or that's my thing at all. But I find it fascinating and I like the idea of having that discipline.
Yoga was good for me for a long time; it helped me mentally and physically get through anxiety and find inner peace.
It definitely comes from me being a seeker and travelling to India or Southeast Asia to find them. I even want to go to Burning Man next year to do a residency. It would be very Californian new-age: freaks and hippies choosing to live outside of the mainstream. I tend to push against the mainstream in my life. There's got to be some other way to live other than what they feed us.
SMIf you do that Burning Man residency, we can meet there. I went three times in the 1990s, and I've been wanting to go back. There's a collaboration by Mike Kelly and Mike Smith, where they go to Burning Man and make a video together. They're a bit more cynical in their relationship to Burning Man, but I think we could do something amazing.
MWThat would be so great. I did a residency in downtown Los Angeles before Covid-19 and all the Burners were making their big structures. And I was like, I want to go! But I didn't have the equipment.
MWWe don't have anything similar in Australia. I've been to rainbow festivals but never overseas. With thousands of people that collective energy would be pretty incredible.
SMTotally. I relate to what you said about why you're attracted to new-age spirituality and the subject matter in your work. My uncle was an astrologer who joined a cult in the late 1950s. They went to Alaska and one of the members suicide-bombed the cult leader because he was sleeping with their wives.
He was a real early adaptor of this alternative lifestyle. He made my chart when I was born, and died when I was about 20, right when I started to get interested in all of this. He was in a coma for three months beforehand. I met all his friends who knew, loved, and talked about him, which made me interested in his life. I also inherited some of his astrology and numerology books. That was a big inspiration for me.
QWho is Cynthia?
SMCynthia started as a series of medical dresses I was making. I would take neck braces, walkers, or haemorrhoid pillows and embed the medical device in the fabric. I thought of them as sculptures, and then my art school advisor said I should try to activate the dresses.
I tried to imagine what kind of person would need them—that's where Cynthia came from. I eventually realised that Cynthia was me because I'm a hypochondriac and ended up needing these devices in one way or another.
She became more autobiographical, but also a combination of female relatives, like my mom, aunt, and grandma. Cynthia is characterised as a housewife, but I don't see her as someone with relationships. She's just me when I'm alone in the bathroom, wondering what the meaning of life is, what beauty product will make me look better, or what exercise programme will make me look stronger.
MWI wish I could weld. But I also really enjoy working with people who have that skill set and having that conversation. For the last four or five years, I've used the same fabricators and people for my neon work. I tend to go back to them because I like that relationship-building; we become friends.
For this show, I spent a lot of time talking with Brie Trenerry, a close friend of mine and a video artist. We share a love of 1970s horror films and the supernatural. Her practice is similar, she looks at otherworldly things, directors, colours, and things from the seventies, which feeds into my work.
For the show, Brie did the 3D hologram, which is a sneaker based on the Heaven's Gate cult's mass suicide. They wore Nike Decades sneakers and the same outfits, with change in their pocket, and the purple sheet over their face. That was super exciting, because normally I work with technicians more than other artists.
SMVery cool. When I started to work with a composer, it really elevated my practice. In Whispering Pines 10 (2018), the music is composed by Nick Hallett. He is the male singer. He also appears in the video and brought in two other singers, which completely transformed the work. So it's really a collaboration with him.
He added a lot to the story and The Whispering Pines 10, which was originally a live performance. We made it into a video and the sound engineer did an amazing job. Otherwise, I would have done everything on my own—the editing, post-production, and costumes.
In terms of installation, that is always site-specific. In this case, the technicians did an amazing job creating the structure based on designs. Thank you, Noah.
QWhere do the symbols and objects in your works come from?
MWThose are based on my current addiction to CrossFit, because they call CrossFit a cult and it has a very specific discipline. It's become homogenised now, but originally it was military-like.
The main structure is from the CrossFit team doing pull-ups, chin-ups, and 100 push-ups. I appropriated the tropes from wellness, gym, and yoga and mushed them to make this hybrid space. I also take from Bikram yoga, which I did for years.
I searched for different ways to look at the world, and then it fed into my art practice.
I guess when you do these things, there's always the good and bad—and it always ends up like Bikram. He ended up getting done for running away and going down for sexual assault. At the same time, yoga was good for me for a long time; it helped me mentally and physically get through anxiety, or just the stress of life, and find inner peace.
The neon relates to the idea that the guru often becomes subject to their power, desire, and money. Here, it looks like she's doing the upward dog, which always has this sexualised connotation—to me, anyways. The media and Instagram sexualise this, as well. I play on that and the words: 'Namaslay' and then 'Namaslay Bitches', which are purely from popular culture.
I use irony and find it amusing, but I am also sincere because I get in there and do the downward dog and the 100 push-ups. There's something I believe in that, but I can also see the other side of it. That's why looking at these new-age practices is interesting—there's a duality and they're a microcosm of their macrocosm.
SMI would totally join that cult—the way it's laid out with the neon, and it's mysterious, too. Like you have to go through some mysterious ritual to learn the secrets.
MWMaybe we can make a cult for Burning Man next year.
SMYes! I dabble in a lot of things, but I'm not physical enough to really get in. I've done yoga for 30 years, but I've never been able to advance. And there's this idea that you can acquire knowledge through this kind of practice. Have you managed to experience that?
MWI think you have brief moments of serenity but it never lasts. It's like going for a run: you put one foot in front of the other, and it's meditative. Your heart is beating, you can feel it and you have a sense of elation. You're going out of your body and I like that. But once it's over, you're back in there, dealing with the same stuff.
For me, it's always about trying to find that something else, instead of being so much in my body, inside my brain just going crazy. Meditation is about trying to stop that inner conversation, but it's hard. Maybe you have to go sit on a mountain.
SMI was just doing this programme called Inner Engineering. You pay three or four hundred dollars and get a series of lectures from the guru. It was their Covid-19 version.
The meditation is very specific: you have to do it twice a day, it takes 30 minutes and goes through steps. Before you meditate, you do an intense butterfly with your legs, then a seated posture where you hold your leg close to you and rotate it vigorously for around six minutes.
I was really into it, but then I damaged my hip. So I stopped even though the meditation section was helping, and I thought I was getting somewhere. It's like this constant trying to find the ultimate system—because I need a system—and then failing. I'm still hoping that there's something out there. Maybe I'll get back into one of those things.
MWI know. It's trying to fit it into your life, as well. With an everyday thing, it can be hard but I do like that discipline because it grounds me. Life can get crazy and trying to find that... I agree. It's forever.
SMYeah. I'll sit in bed doing the New York Times puzzle until noon if I don't have a system. One of the best times for me was being at an art residency where they serve meals at certain times of the day, so you have a structure. I would never want to join the military, but to have that structure in your life sounds great. So totally, I get all of that. —[O]
