Harsha Menon: A So-called Artist: An Interview with Helen MirraBy Harsha Menon Buddhistdoor Global, 2019
Peter Eleey and Helen Mirra: dialogue, april – june 2011, Gehend, Argobooks, 2013
Friedrich Meschede: Silvester, Transylvania, Käuzchensteig and more beneath the cloud, Helen Mirra im Grunewald, DAAD, Berlin 2006
Rena Leinberger: Interview: Helen Mirra, Bridge, Winter/Spring 2003
Jen Bervin: Honest Pen Hospital, Sky-wreck, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2002

Waulked Triangle, 2015, undyed wool from two black sheep, strand of wool dyed with hydnellum caeruleum, cork, cedar, 74 x 86 cm

Hendl Helen Mirra »Nueve años caminando en las laderas«

Mexico City, November 17, 2018 - January 19, 2019

Helen Mirra
Nine years of slope-walking

In 2008 I found myself on a yearlong artist residency in Switzerland without a studio, and realized my way forward was in walking. Since then I’ve been engaged in an ongoing project in which daylong walks generate artworks and vice versa. Non-redundant repetition, change, and chance, have been underlying the overall project.

Bodhidharma is thought to have been a Buddhist monk who travelled from India to China in the 5th or 6th century. Part of the story is that he sat in a cave in meditation for nine years – in contrast to being caught up in words, whether presumptions or speculations or rationalizations. In Zen texts, this is often referred to as his “nine years of wall-sitting”. It is considered a paragon of sincere practice.

Last October, in the mountains in Northern California, I realized I had been walking for nine years. This is a small survey exhibition, presenting one work from each of the years 2009-2017.

Coinciding with this exhibition is the publication of a book. It is a collection of writings made through reading, and others made through walking, in the years 1998-2013. Similar to some of my favorite books, it is in two languages, on facing pages. Some of the Spanish texts I constructed with the same mesostic method that I had used in the English, by writing through similar books found in Mexico; some of the indexes were parallel-indexed (with the German versions of the same titles) by Daniela Helbig; and the rest of the texts were translated into Spanish by Toni Sadurní Viñas and Hebe Garibay.

Helen Mirra

Presstext Español