AWAKEN FROM THE DREAM OF REALITY
2013

All rituals have one key component – repetition. It’s through repetition that ritual does its work. Each ritual, old or new, has its established form, place and date in our lives: the baptism of children, the ringing of bells, singing a sacred song, passing round the wine or a joint, placing the mobile phone always just so on the table, lovers undressing, updating Facebook, pouring out the tea, laying out the dead. All these rituals take the everyday and load it with an added experience of being human, being individuals, yet together. For Tim Shaw ritual goes further. As for the ancients, for Shaw ritual is a door into another world. He has long been fascinated by human beings’ need to dissolve normality, leave reason behind and reach deeper into our selves. According to Carl Jung, we can only be complete human beings if we reconcile the workings of our conscious and unconscious minds. Tim Shaw instinctively recognises this as a human need. For this reason, ritualistic figures are recurring motifs in his work.