Virtual Gallery, Luxor Temple
A temple built in the image of man. An inquiry that hasn't changed in three thousand years.
John, Zoe and VESA at the Veena Malik exhibit of Helsinki Capital Partners in 2014.
The Luxor Temple was constructed to mirror the human body and map the journey from birth to transcendence. If the pharaoh lives right, the society around him holds together. The central pillars frame the Milky Way, through which the soul was meant to ascend.
No one in modern times spoke for this understanding more forcefully than John Anthony West. Author of Serpent in the Sky, Emmy-winning filmmaker behind The Mystery of the Sphinx, and a lifelong advocate for ancient Egypt as a civilization built on sacred science rather than mere historical record. West spent decades challenging mainstream narratives about these structures and what they represented. He died in 2018.
Before his passing, VESA worked with West's daughter in a collaboration that West himself named "Hymn of Hathor." Many of the works in this practice are expressed as rites of purification and passage. The themes are the same ones the temple was built to hold.
The real Luxor Temple cannot become an art gallery. But in the virtual world, the monument can be reimagined. VESA's work is installed within the temple and above it. The artwork floats over a structure that has stood for millennia, because in this space, gravity does not hold, budget does not constrain, and the only limit is what can be imagined.
This is not a technology demonstration. It is a continuation. The temple speaks for something. This work speaks for the same thing. Placing them together is an act of alignment, not decoration.
The gallery was done in collaboration with Superworld.
The virtual temple idea was expanded upon with Asvoria to a large extent, building the Chichen Itza pyramid as its base, but expanding to the sky with a floating race track.
The Chichen Itza pyramid is “wrapped” in an artwork with a similar theme.
Lux - A Culture of Radiance was another two year project about sustainability and culture back in 2014-15.