Very Very Important Salvation

Abstract

A spiritual journey may require proper preparation and a particular mindset, for example, a belief in transcendence or reincarnation. Or in the first place, a belief in a path for survival, a method of illumination, thus a performative challenge facing the pathfinder. What if there is no more spiritual recovery, with all the maladies lingering on in the killing fields and contaminated, damaged environments? Some time ago, when I was preparing a theatre piece for a Houston gallery, I remember stopping on the road to take a closer look at a creature that had been run over. I never would have done so, but a photographer friend had alerted me to a series of portraits he had made of roadkill. We decided to use enlarged projections of these images in the performance. It did occur to me that unlike in previous ages, death is largely taboo in Western culture, and dead humans, just as smashed or condemned carcasses of animals, are largely hidden, removed from view.