When All Roads Are One
When All Roads Are One is a free standing sculptural video work in which Aharoni alights on the act of making a pilgrimage to explore notions of intercultural connectivity and co-existence. A pilgrimage is a ritual undertaken by scores of people, across geographies and generations. It is not circumscribed or limited to a moment, but continues to endure as an act of faith, devotion and dedication across time. When All Roads Are One is the culmination of the ideas explored in the larger installation The Road to Sanchi composed of twelve sculptures, each made from an obsolete taximeter found in India into which Aharoni has inserted video screens. These individual sculptures replay footage shot by Aharoni over a decade from moving rickshaws, while making pilgrimages to four sacred sites in India. Aharoni chose Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic and Hindu heritage sites— Sanchi, Mattanchery, Nizamuddin and Varanasi respectively. Aharoni is careful not to picture the actual monument or site in his videos, keeping the focus on the "road" or the journey made to each site. Aharoni saw this object as containing "the metaphorical energy of thousands of journeys," and wanted to connect to this history and carry it forward to the digital age. Aharoni animates an inanimate object, and creates a new context for it, by putting it on a pedestal and under a glass dome, which takes on a hybrid form between a time capsule and a stupa. When All Roads Are One merges all the films that play across the twelve sculptures of The Road to Sanchi, converted into black and white and by integrating these different trips into one vivid trip, Aharoni engenders a cross-cultural pilgrimage, asserting that the sacred journey as existing above religious divides. The taximeter in When All Roads Are One is cased in 23 karat gold leaf and becomes a reliquary that seeks to challenge current monolithic notions about sacred landscapes, sites and pilgrimage.
Artwork Details
- Title: When All Roads Are One
- Artist: Ghiora Aharoni (American, born Rehovot, Israel 1969)
- Date: 2017
- Medium: Single-channel digital video, black-and-white, 7 min., 46 sec.; gilded taxi meter, pedestal and vitrine
- Dimensions: 55 × 11 5/8 in. (139.7 × 29.5 cm)
- Classifications: Variable Media, Sculpture
- Credit Line: Purchase, Bruce F. Stuart Gift, 2020
- Object Number: 2020.326a–c
- Rights and Reproduction: ©2017 Ghiora Aharoni, all rights reserved, used with permission
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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