“when the sun comes up”
Question: What is one way your spirituality interacts with the environment around you?
Context: The University of Toronto invited student artist to submit projects on spirituality, faith, and the environment. For me, God’s creation is one of my favourite places to dwell in. It has been a place of refuge and peace. Questions of investigation: How is your sense of spirituality impacted by natural environments? Where do you feel at home on this earth? How does climate change affect your community, sense of identity and life story?
The piece features Fawn Woods' song, “Remember me”, accompanied by a collection of medleyed voice notes from five individuals from different environmental and historical locations. The audio overlays a video of a sunrise.
The piece reminds us of the daily rising and setting of nature in offering beauty in our lives. The natural environment is a meaningful intention created for our survival and thriving. Indigenous ways of knowing teach the intersections of human identity as inseparable from living landscapes. This art piece interprets the song as the sun calling out “remember me”.
Project type: Art Submission - Multifaith Centre at the University of Toronto
Role: Audio and video editor
Transcript
My relationship to the environment is absolute, constant, and yet ever evolving.
I think our philosophies in life and our understandings of spirituality, the way we view ourselves and the universe and the way we view the power or the powers that be in the universe, influence the way that we interact with our environment greatly.
When birdwatching, look at small creatures of birds and you see the difference of how the make of the birds’ collar is so different from its wings. I tell you if these were silent, the very stones would cry out and he was talking about even the stones worshiping him if the human race never worshiped.
I have always believed that there is something much larger than we can understand.
The land and the geographic entities exist and the landscape are seen as ancestors and as living histories.
It always just fascinates me and leaves me in awe when I look at just the simple creatures: the birds fly, just look at the detailing, the design of the birds that fly, looking even at its wings, for example, and seeing how one bird flies is not the same as the next.
Our finite knowledge in understanding the environment should make us pause and wonder and reflect on the best way to preserve this beautiful interconnectedness of the environment that we have. And the more that we learn about nature, ecosystems, the way that everything is connected to each other in this sort of intricate web, the more I realize how amazing and beautiful our place can be in it, even if we feel insignificant and even if we feel small.
He created such a unique and beautiful world, mountains and oceans, flowers and trees, and seashells, how much more care he took in creating us and giving us his very breath of life.
I see space, space, time, our very existence as a kind of interplay and dialogue with the Spirit of everything.
I marvel at the fact that we get to look at the wonder that God has created.
One thing that we do, you know, can make a drastic difference in the way everything works together and I think that’s quite magical.
Thank you to the voices and artistry that made this project possible. Giving gratitude for the sun that rises and sets each day, you are not forgotten.
Afraaz Adam Akbar Alnoor Mulji - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Katie Greenough - Ventura, California, United States of America Vivien Chan - Montreal, Quebec, Canada Nolwazi Zandile Dube - Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Gugulethu Tshabalala - Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Kalcymc (2011, August 29). Sunrise - Black Sea HD. Youtube. Retrieved February, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwkdmHt_Ez8 Wood, F. (2015). Remember me. [Audio file]. Retrieve from https://genius.com/Fawn-wood-remember-me-lyrics