“ . . . an ongoing conversation...”

Basket with stones; photographs attached
16 x 27 x 16 cm; with weed-mat and cushions.

...I have chosen this verse because it represents my core prayer in life . . . No matter what happens, what questions are unanswered or what darkness engulfs me, my heart's desire is that I remain "kept" in God.

Please feel free to engage and/or eavesdrop in this conversation by taking out the stones from the basket and either holding them or placing them on the table. Please return them once you've finished.

Note: Basket made by children from the slums of Zimbabwe.
Photography my own, of children from India, my own children and me.

Selected photos

Lauren's talk from the Opening Night. Artists Talk About Their Work.
Wednesday 19 March 2008, 7:00-8:30pm, in the Gallery Space.

Facilitated by Sandra Atkins.

Lauren Kumerich: I chose to do this because it was such a long process and it went for months and it was actually before lent this whole process started so its kind of weird that it comes down to something quite small in the end.
The piece is called An Ongoing Conversation, because that is what it is, constantly in dialogue with God, I guess, just trying to find out who he is, and it’s obviously a big journey.  So far, well, as of late, he kind of took me through a process where he said actually you don’t really know me at all, so it was kind of like “Oh . . . ”
I went to India last year, which was a huge thing for me, because previous to that I had been quite agoraphobic, and suffered a lot from depression and anxiety, this is years leading to this.  So going to India was kind of like “Wow, I’m going to India, that’s a big deal.” To get out of the house, you know, and then to get to India. It wasn’t like I was going to Fiji or something or going to the Gold Coast, it was something seriously in you face.
That’s were the verse comes in, ‘cause I really had to overcome, I suppose, to get on the plane and commit my spirit into his hand, just knowing that whatever questions I had unanswered or any fears that I had, I just had to . . . Oh, well.  And I guess that’s what Jesus did at that point when he said it because he was obviously freaking out and feeling abandoned and humiliated, and one of the last things he said was “Oh well, into my hands I commit my spirit”. That is pretty much that, in this whole process of going to India I really felt God talking a lot to me, and originally he was talking about how I didn’t know him, but then he was in India, so it was like “Oh there you are, oh there you are”, so there was another conversation going on.
Ok, skip forward now. I’m back in New Zealand and I’ve go to now make a decision about what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.  My youngest son is going to start school in September, so I’m like ok, I’ve got find out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’ve got to do some career quizzes, let’s find out who I am and what’s the best job to suit me.  So I started filling out all these questionnaires, and finding out what kind of personality I am and what kind of job I should go in to.  It was kind of quite depressing, I don’t like being called melancholy, I don’t like being put into this box, it’s a bit awful.  But at the same time as I was having this kind of crisis, and the computer is telling me that I’m not really very employable, and I’m thinking this is not so cool, I did the Lenten process.
I think it was the second week, it was about identity, the verse that was in that was in Matthew where Jesus is talking to the disciples. You know, there’s all this hustle and bustle, and Jesus is saying “What are people saying about me, what are they saying the Son of God is, who’s the Son of Man”, and they say “They’re saying this, and he’s saying that”, and Jesus says “well who do you say I am”, and he’s like “Oh”.  And I think it’s Simon Peter who says “Well, I say you’re the Messiah, I say you’re the Christ” and he says “Oh well, that’s awesome, well this is who I say you are,”, and he tells Simon Peter that he’s the rock, and that he thinks Simon Peter is the rock. Now I’m pretty sure that if Simon Peter was like me, sitting on the computer going even “Who am I?”, it wouldn’t come back ‘rock.’ I’m sure it would come back ‘Insecure, People-pleaser.’  So I though, that’s pretty good then, if Simon Peter is the rock according to Jesus I don’t really need to worry about being called melancholic by the computer.
And I started to think about my name, and about what my name means, and my name is ‘Victory’ and my second name is ‘Joy.’  So I thought I’ll just go with that. So anyway, that’s sort of the ongoing conversation, and you can either listen in or you can get involved by having a similar conversation with yourself or God. That was me just dong the little brief thing.

[From the floor]: Is there any significance in the Fanta tops?

Lauren: The whole Fanta basket thing is actually made by children from the slums in Zimbabwe. There isn’t any significance at all but other than it was a good idea that my husband had to put it in this particular basket.  And I thought, that actually fits because it’s made from the hands of children who obviously don’t have a very blessed life. It’s all part of the conversation.

Sandra: It’s also making valuable, I think, something which is seen as not valuable. Which is kind of linked to your own, what we call ourselves and what God calls us.

Lauren: There are obviously photos here of children from India, and some of them are street children, from the slums, and it was quite disturbing, and if you’ve been to India you’ll probably know, that sometimes if you’re there at the lights you’ve got the street people at the windows and scratching at the windows trying to get money and stuff.  And the way that everyone deals with it is by treating them like vermin, and there’s a girl there who I’ve taken a photo of who is so beautiful and I was really impacted by her. She was so gorgeous. And obviously no one’s vermin, but there’s the fact that . . . I was just a real . . . I don’t know how to describe it. It’s probably left unsaid.