TO LIVE UNEXPECTEDLY IS TO LIVE WITH NO EXPECTATIONS BUT OPENNESS; WHEN YOU MEET SUDDENLY YOU MEET YOUR SOURCE

a loving - feeling approach in Kineret Haya Max’s practice by agata flaminika

Kineret Haya Max, photo credit Amin abu Zahara

Kineret Haya Max, an Israeli performance artist and a teacher, as a part of this year’s FLOW symposium, has created a tender, gentle space of exploration where each individual could go on an intimate journey of seeing the imposed control of the process and alchemising it through the surrender to the sudden flow; allowing one's illusions to die and resulting in recognition of the creative core-heart~ inner eye - the source of imagination.

Beingness is a very delicate state - itself is not a state at all. Beingness is simple, but it is not easy. Or is it? Is there anything that could describe beingness? Any adjective, or noun? Is there anything that would grasp the depths of the beingness, that is not personal, but just is?

Beingness is the very foundation for everything else that happens. It is a canvas, on which the colours and shapes start to show up. It is a sky on which the stars, the moon, and the clouds can be observed. Beingness itself is still and quiet - beingness is nothingness. It is a background, a scene. From beingness, the observations (thoughts, dialogues, conversations, gestures, and actions) begin. This quiet space is a space where the births are happening, where the creative juices are poured into little flasks, ready to be manifested.

What helps in staying in beingness, is a trust and surrender in the process. Forgetting about beingness results in the desire to control, especially when something happens SUDDENLY - unexpectedly, surprisingly. Being attached to that desire (rather than giving it up and coming back into beingness), can create tension, shame, disappointment, blockages, burnouts, and even depression.

During Kineret Haya Max's workshops, we had been re-introducing, re-imagining, re-writing, and constructing/deconstructing the idea of the 'sudden', recognising its relationship in/with the state of FLOW.  If an individual decides to direct their energy from the desire (or any other attachment that creates a persona) into the beingness, they may notice that there is nothing that is separated from it. That means, that everything that can be perceived, comes, and goes. Even the slightest identification with what is being observed may result in taking away the awareness from the beingness into something that is temporary and changeable. To 'go with the flow', the individual must accept 'the sudden' as a natural state of the mind-body-environment self.

In the context of artistic practice and public art, the rekindling of reconnection and embracement of the sudden may result in work that comes from the very core of the heart, unpacking and unrevealing itself, rather than being forced from the desire of an ego that itself is conditioned-imagined. This type of work has much more to do with the Eastern philosophies rather than stiff frames of academic, western contemporary art teachings, in which there is an emphasis put on endless analysis, evaluation and contextualization. The work that emerges from the sudden is the work that is universal, metaphorical, and relatable - it may even predict the future.

Through various exercises, participants had been re-shaping their relationship with the sudden - using senses rather than thoughts only, they would describe what they cannot see in what they see, going on imagined vision quests in which the situations were already happening. Kineret Haya Max's method recognises and acknowledges what is found inside the artist, who is perceived as a channel for things to flow. In this context, performance art is a tool that charges with something in the right time and space. Through imagination and FEELING, one can explore everything that is already there - and by exposing it, bring it to the public eye. And from that space of feeling - that happens as a natural part of beingness - the artist can create the work that guides themselves and becomes the process (flow), rather than generating a false idea that they must be their own guide and control every part of the process (out of flow). For example, by being in a specific environment and imagining a site-specific work, one can either think of how to add, change, or make something new (outside, planned) or feel what already is through what is unseen, wait, and unpack it (inside, sudden).

Nothing can be controlled. To follow the false idea of control would require more energy, effort, and stress. Controlled life would be filled with the desires that will keep showing up, one after the other; and in which there will be a hidden need to be validated. Many people/artists lead their lives from their desires rather than their beingness; being taught that that is the only (right) way. Controlled life is a capitalistic idea of not having/being enough. Controlled art is an art paid for with suffering. Kineret Haya Max proposes an approach that is based on compassion and trust that is unforced and intuitive, in which the concept of failure does not exist, as well as not right or wrong. Everything just is, and that is where its beauty lies. And from that everything something can be picked up to be seen.

So now leave everything that you do now, sit down or lay down or take any position you like and instead of thinking...

Do not stop unless you feel to stop. Allow the being to happen. Trust. Surrender to everything you feel.
Allow yourself just to be, with no expectations, no desires, no wants.
Just be.

Be and feel.

Because something will happen. Out of the sudden.
And that will guide you into places that you have not expected to see.
But it will all make a perfect sense.

by agata flaminika, December 9, 2023