Kristian Zara

The arc of returning: will it happen?

As an artist, I view mythology as the multiplicity of an archetype’s life. I understand an archetype as an energetic remnant, encoded within us, echoing a life beyond the present past life: transcending from a cosmic life energy.

This work is built upon the myth of Persephone, which represents the multidimensional nature of a single archetype: [the Daughter=the seed]   

Persephone maps the arc of growth revealing the necessity of individuation to re-emerge, into life through our original, authentic self. Like other myths, Persephone highlights the importance of self-analysis and the understanding of our inner developmental processes. It decodes the relationship between man and society, and between humanity and the earth. Thus, it embodies both growing processes – individual and collective – which cannot be split from one another, even though they are diverse from each other.

In its artistic terms, this work engages in the imagining of the psychological state of Albanian society from 1991 to the present. It examines a long-lasting transition period where unresolved trauma seems to psychologically enable the rise of authoritarians, forcing society to re-experience the same pain. Through this cycle, the society has been kept in the “underworld” of intellectual and spiritual darkness. The ‘light of the mind’ and authenticity have been obscured by socio-political shadows, while the choice to decide whether to leave the underworld or remain entangled under the obedience of fear has been held by paradoxical forces.

In other words, Albanian society resembles Persephone eating the pomegranate. Unfortunately, this society has eaten almost the entire fruit, ingesting multiple states of confusion, distrust, perceptual disconnection, material vanity. This trapping of the collective psyche is visually mirrored in the drawing: a solitary asymmetric form of spiritual absence.

Ultimately, the work articulates artistically this asymmetric state of spiritual absence, intentionally questioning the present: will we choose to listen to the emerging myth – to the call and the return of the archetype of a life beyond the present past life? Will we embrace the emerging force of authenticity?