You are invited to come and make an offering of prayer and/ or a sacrifice at the altar to Xi’orhki.

Opening: October 11 6pm – 9pm at Trocadero Art Space, Footscray

Show dates: October 11 – October 28

After watching the TV series (from the book of the same name) ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman, I contemplated my own feelings of powerlessness in the face of climate change and its inevitable consequences. I have always been interested in the relationship between people and spirituality, mysticism and religiosity. I am not a religious person myself but I would not call myself an atheist. I found myself questioning my faith in humanity and where I am spiritually. A couple of things the characters said struck me.

‘People create gods when they wonder why things happen. Do you know why things happen? Because gods make them happen. You wanna know how to make good things happen? Be good to your god. You give a little. You get a little. The simplicity of that bargain has always been appealing.’ –Mr. Wednesday (God name: Odin)

‘Gods are great, but people are greater. For it is in their hearts that gods are born, and to their hearts that they return. Gods live and gods die.’ -Mr. Ibis (God name: Thoth)

I believe Earth is veering away from the equilibrium that we, as humans, desire because of our collective actions as a civilisation. We want equilibrium without consequences; we want to be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want and not have to worry about anything. As ‘Nature’ compensates to achieve its own balance, we are reaping what we have sown, manifesting in, for example, mass extinctions and increasingly frequent and violent climate phenomena.

The god of equilibrium, Xi'orhki, is born out of my own questioning. If Belief and Faith is all we need, then we need look no further than to worship a dedicated god.

From the perspective of the non-believer in me, it is a critique of the return to mysticism and religion when we cannot bring ourselves to face an increasingly bleak reality.