Dr. Barush will discuss her work with The Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project, which is an invitation to create and experience art-infused pilgrimages in the Bay Area and beyond. It seeks to link sacred landscapes the world over to neighborhoods, gardens, and backyards as a way to connect with each other and our ancestors […]
Berkeley Art & Pilgrimage Project-related events and talks at the American Academy of Religion conference in Denver, CO: Saturday, Nov. 19th, 4:30 pm: come pick up a postcard for our latest pilgrimage and chat with Dr. Kathryn Barush & advisory board member Dr. Cogen Bohanec about the project (GTU booth) Saturday, Nov. 19th, 6:00 pm: […]
From the wanderers of Caspar David Friedrich or the flaneurs of Charles Baudelaire to Paul Klee taking a line for a walk or Ghandi leading the Salt March to the Wall Street crawls of William Pope L or the sonic scapes of Janet Cardiff, the activity of walking has been thematized as resistance--whether to the speed of capital and the logics of the imperium or simply to the rushed pace and sheer business of contemporary life. A dérive interrupting thoughtless transit from a to b, the embodied practice of walking is, deliberately undertaken, a mode of thinking as well as doing. This panel aims to investigate the walk in contemporary artistic practice. Themes may include: the mechanics of ambulation; walking as thought, as escape, as flight, as penance, as punishment, as pilgrimage; self-powered movement as forensic, slow, embodied, as individuated and collective--walking as, to borrow from the critic Mario Pedrosa, an "experimental practice of freedom." Presentations are welcome to range across an array of topics and modalities, from address to physiological basics-–the foot, the human form, bipedalism, gravity—to physical and spatial exercises and thought experiments to specific cultural and geopolitical examples, with particular attention to the contemporary explosion in art-walking as a sophisticated collective and ecological, even ethological, response to hypermodernity.
The Graduate Theological Union is pleased to host Dr. Kathryn Barush, Thomas E. Bertelsen Jr. Associate Professor of Art History and Religion, for the sixth annual Borsch-Rast Lecture for her 2021 publication, Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience (Bloomsbury Visual Arts). In her acclaimed book, Dr. Barush explores contemporary artworks created after pilgrimage experiences, which are intended […]
Help us to end hunger, one step at a time! The Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University is teaming up with the School of the Madeleine for the 2023 Berkeley CROP Hunger Walk. Together we will provide more meals for the growing number of people in our community who need them, and create greater food security in […]
To mark the anniversary of the publication of Phil Volker’s beautiful book, Walking in the Mud: The Diary of a D.I.Y. Camino, here’s a podcast live from Raven Ranch with editors Kathryn Barush and Rebecca Graves: (click below!)
Savor a sensory experience through wine and tapas that will transport you to the Camino Ignaciano - the Way of St. Ignatius of Loyola - in Spain. Enjoy a guided tasting with renowned New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov who will also share sustainable wine practices from the regions. Professor Kathryn Barush will showcase some of the sacred art of […]
Reimagining: Faith, Hope, and Love features approximately 20 paintings by Los Angeles based visual artist, Deborah Lanino, made between 2020 and 2024. One could say art is in her DNA, going back to Renaissance Italy. These selected works were inspired by an ancestral, spiritual and art infused pilgrimage that reflects a contemporary view of traditional subject matter seen in Renaissance art.
Please join us this fall for the annual international Symposium for Pilgrimage Studies. This year’s theme is Comparing Pilgrimage: Layers of Meaning and Motion. BAIPP Founding Director Dr. Kathryn Barush and Dr. Rachel H. Smith, Gilkison Distinguished Professor of Art History, Taylor University and Director of ASCHA will discuss Contemporary Art as Pilgrimage Journey and Sacred Site. Justin Grosnick, SJ, current Graduate Theological Union PhD student, will present on Jagannath the Pilgrim: Pilgrimage as Envisioned from the Perspective of Sacred Images.
Join the GTU's Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project (BAIPP) for the 2025 Winter Wandering Festival, taking place January 24–26. This three-day event explores the human journey and its profound connections to place, space, and imagination. Presented in partnership with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, this inspiring festival will feature powerful musical performances and artistic expression. By purchasing a Festival Pass, […]
The symposium seeks to explore contemporary art as pilgrimage and sacred site as the foundation for a new interdisciplinary project that draws into relationship the wealth of research arising out of pilgrimage and ritual studies, contemporary art history and criticism, anthropology, and religious and theological studies, with a particular focus on how artists perceive and […]
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