RiTUAL. A ceremonial act ~ Rites used in the course of worship ~ The performance of ceremonial acts ~ The prescribed form of conducting the ceremony ~ A method of procedure that is followed without variation ~ performance with gestures, words, and objects, often in a sequestered place.
- - -
Ana Vizcarra Rankin is an Uruguayan American artist living somewhere between homesickness and wanderlust. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History summa cum laude from Temple University in 2010 and her Master of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2012. Ana has exhibited nationally and internationally at Sandy Springs Museum, Goggleworks, Crane Arts, Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, Designbox, and the Exploris Museum. Awards include Billikopf Award 2010, Essie Baron Memorial Award 2010 and the Judith McGregor Caldwell Purchase Prize for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum permanent collection in 2012.
Stargazing has lately become a passive contemplation of manufactured beauty, aided by computer models and high definition dislplays. In contrast, the act of laying our bodies down on the ground to gaze up at the sky is physical and hedonistic and uncommonly empirical. It is a little death, simultaneously soothing and terrifying. It feels best when the ground is warm.
