Rejected Religion Podcast Rejected Religion Spotlight - Conjuring Creativity: Art & the Esoteric Conference 3 - Inhabiting Esoteric Ecologies, March 15-16 2025
This Spotlight was scheduled to be uploaded in February 2025, but due to illness and scheduling issues, it was postponed.
Conjuring Creativity: Art & the Esoteric #3 ‘Inhabiting Esoteric Ecologies’
MKII, 71 - 75 Powerscroft rd., Lower Clapton, London, E5 0PT
15-16/3/2025
In this month's Spotlight, I'm joined by guests Geraldine Hudson and Ben Jeans Houghton from the Conjuring Creativity Conference.
Geraldine is an interdisciplinary artist, art educator and curator. Participating specifically at the intersections of site, ecological communion and otherness regarding the relationships between magic/folklore/myth, the female body and our more than human world.
This manifests as performance, sculptural installation, short film, text, soundscapes and participatory workshops. Working alchemically with materials which are often site/time dependent such as earth/clay, ash, human hair and plant matter.
She has exhibited and curated widely in Europe and beyond, whilst speaking on the relationship between magic and art at conferences such as ESSWE, Trans - States and Occulture. She is a previous board member of Fylkingen in Stockholm, founder of project space Konstapoteket and a founding member of the Magickal Aktivist Artist group NKK in Sweden. She is currently studying towards her masters in fine art at Goldsmiths, UAL.
'I enact rites, actions and pilgrimages which then feed back into an exhibited practice, choosing to engage in an art making which is often cyclical, mystical or site sensitive, engaging in embodied acts of connection whilst attempting to align with cosmological time. I utilise my own esoteric practices and knowledge as a conduit between the public 'spectacle of art and reconciliation with the other, claiming magick as a technology of selfhood' .
Ben Jeans Houghton is a multidisciplinary Artist and Astrologer, working in sculpture, installation, film, drawing, poetry, essay and performance. Through these media he explores magic; the art of transformation, its methodologies, technologies, agencies, implications and praxis, from astrological, animistic, gnostic and philosophical perspectives.
Ben has exhibited internationally in Africa, Germany, Greece, Japan, South Korea and the USA and in the UK with organisations such as CCA - Glasgow, Workplace Gallery - Gateshead, Gymnasium Gallery - Berwick, Bloc Projects - Sheffield, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art - Gateshead, Generator Projects - Dundee, Whitstable Biennale - Whitstable, BFI - London, Circa Projects - Newcastle, NGCA - Sunderland and Channel Four - UK.
Geraldine and Ben talk about the upcoming third edition of the Conjuring Creativity: Art & the Esoteric - ‘Inhabiting Esoteric Ecologies’ Conference is taking place this month, in London, on the 15th and 16th of March. They give some background about themselves, and Geradling discusses what led her to organize the conference several years ago in cooperation with Dr. Per Faxneld.
They also talk a bit about the lineup this year, and what some of the topics will be, as well as why events like theirs are so important for the larger community of people involved in ‘the esoteric’.
It was a pleasure to talk with them about their work. Please see the Notes below for more information about the conference and the artists.
PROGRAM NOTES
Conjuring Creativity: Art & the Esoteric #3 ‘Inhabiting Esoteric Ecologies’
MKII, 71 - 75 Powerscroft rd., Lower Clapton, London, E5 0PT
15-16/3/2025
This two day interdisciplinary conference brings together practitioners, scholars and artists who all have a shared interest in the fields of occultism and esoteric methodologies.
This upcoming edition intentionally focuses on the entangled relationships between magick and the more-than-human, exploring how esoteric, occult and mystical strategies are being utilised within and alongside contemporary art to recognise, repair and re-member our innate relationships, to our earthly ecologies, spirits, pan-species kin and the unseen companions who inform and inhabit our terrestriality.
* NOTE about Tickets: there are have a limited amount of weekend tickets and single day tickets available at the door in the morning.
TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE ON A SLIDING SCALE FROM:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/conjuringcreativity
https://www.instagram.com/conjuring.creativity
Music: Stephanie Shea
Video Production: Stephanie Shea/ Rejected Religion