The Secret Life of Statues

with Dr Angela Voss

In this session we will explore the experience of living statues, and what it means when

we find our imaginations so engaged with images that we see them as living, breathing

beings. In the ancient world statues could be prosecuted for committing crimes or

celebrated as oracles – there was a very fine line between the image and the living being

it represented. Bringing images alive by the way we look and engage our imagination is a

fundamental human experience which is now relegated to superstition and illusion. We

will look at some powerful examples of statuary and consider the ancient practice of

telestike, or statue animation as a ritual which could eventually lead to the divinisation of

the celebrant’s own soul through practices of active imagination. Participants will be

invited to bring or show images which have a special significance for them.