Cenote Cosmos 沉洞泉
Cenote Cosmos is......?
Cenote Cosmos/Chén Dòng Quán (originally Cenote Workshop) is an art research and practice project that creates a fictional cosmology (another world) paralleling with our contemporary. We explore possibilities for Spiritual Activism with socially engaged workshop, theater, performance, moving images, writing, self-publishing and curatorial practice within and beyond the two worlds.
呼吸的洞、发光的泉；沉洞泉是合作共创的艺术实践与研究项目，同时向内洞察无我的本质，与向外探索集体结构的觉知。我们流动于梦境、公共空间、艺术场所、社群、街道、湖泊、雨林、与宇宙…
Co-founders and organizers: Jia and Mei
创始成员：胖丁、梅子
A cave that breathes / a spring that glows... inward into the nature of “no-self”,and outward into the awareness of collective structures.
沉洞泉波(Cenote Wave)是人脑和CDQYZ-222黑洞的量子场共振构成的一个频率在极的谐振腔，其共振频率的周长刚好相当于银河系半径。
我们试图共振到沉洞泉波的频率，探索sacred activism （灵性行动主义）在当下社会的实践，具体呈现为艺术研究、写作、影像创作、工作坊、共学小组等。
在三位一体的沉洞泉宇宙观中，个体内部的洞察与修行——社会结构问题的行动与实践—— 集体的转变与疗愈，与天地自然合一而共生。
据说：沉洞泉波可以通向古老未来的沉洞泉宇宙（Cenote Cosmos)，欢迎入洞......
欢迎关注同名公众号
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Cenote Cosmos/Chén Dòng Quán (originally Cenote Workshop) is an art research and practice project that creates a fictional cosmology (another world) paralleling with our contemporary. We explore possibilities for Spiritual Activism with socially engaged workshop, theater, performance, moving images, writing, self-publishing and curatorial practice within and beyond the two worlds.
呼吸的洞、发光的泉；沉洞泉是合作共创的艺术实践与研究项目，同时向内洞察无我的本质，与向外探索集体结构的觉知。我们流动于梦境、公共空间、艺术场所、社群、街道、湖泊、雨林、与宇宙…
Co-founders and organizers: Jia and Mei
创始成员：胖丁、梅子
呼吸的洞、发光的泉；沉洞泉是合作共创的艺术实践与研究项目，同时向内洞察无我的本质，与向外探索集体结构的觉知。我们流动于梦境、公共空间、艺术场所、社群、街道、湖泊、雨林、与宇宙…
Co-founders and organizers: Jia and Mei
创始成员：胖丁、梅子
沉洞泉波(Cenote Wave)是人脑和CDQYZ-222黑洞的量子场共振构成的一个频率在极的谐振腔，其共振频率的周长刚好相当于银河系半径。
我们试图共振到沉洞泉波的频率，探索sacred activism （灵性行动主义）在当下社会的实践，具体呈现为艺术研究、写作、影像创作、工作坊、共学小组等。
在三位一体的沉洞泉宇宙观中，个体内部的洞察与修行——社会结构问题的行动与实践—— 集体的转变与疗愈，与天地自然合一而共生。
据说：沉洞泉波可以通向古老未来的沉洞泉宇宙（Cenote Cosmos)，欢迎入洞......
欢迎关注同名公众号
Follow our wechat platform for detailed documentations & updates
Workshops Selected （2021-2023）
部分工作坊
柔而无畏
Soft but Fearless
Workshop at 前台(one step forward), Guangzhou, China. Dec 16, 2023“Softness” seems to be a pejorative term in a society that prizes power, but it can be a fearless and unassuming strength. When we channel the “soft” power of water into our bodies, the direction of the force is full of possibilities for transformation.
In this workshop, we invite you to explore the embodied and creative expression of “softness and fearlessness” through progressive meditation, games, physical exercises, and mini-theater ......, and together we will see each other in the present moment, and share softness and vulnerability
The workshop begins with Mei and Jia (co-facilitators of the workshop) sharing their understanding and learnings around what ‘Sacred Activism’ means to them, in relation to gentle power, collective healing, feminism and our Shamanic experience.
Then, Jia guides a collective, light meditation. Mei leads everyone into a massage train where participants massage the person in front while standing in a circle. Then, Each participants introduces themselves with one movement and one sound.
After the warm-up, the first section is Image Theater, inspired by Theater of the Oppressed. Everyone uses their body to embody the words ‘柔弱(soft)’ and ‘无畏(fearless)’. Then, paired with another person, the couple discuss and embody the word ‘柔而无畏(soft but fearless)’ together. We share our discussions, learnings and difficulties.
With an introduction of how to incoporate the body state of ‘being soft but fearless’ into our daily scenarios, we ask each participant to choose one scenario from their life (that is not traumatic) where they find themselves being triggered in a 2-person interaction. We enter into a guided visualization session, where participants can return to the scenario, look at it from a safe distance, and experience the event from the other person’s perspective. Participants are encouraged to channel the soft but fearless state in their body, and make a body movement to the other person, and say one sentence.
In the final collective performance, inspired by Rainbow of Desire, one volunteer ‘narrator’ shares their scneario and experience, with an emphasis on body sensations and emotional states. Then we invite 10 ‘actors’ to embody the experience with one body movement and one sentence (that starts with ‘I’), reflecting the inner state of the narrator. Collectively, 10 actors present the movement and the words/sounds at the same time. The narrator then chooses their own way to respond/transform the embodiments, before another round of collective presentation through movement and sounds.
在当今依旧有着随处可见的暴力和压迫的世界中，人们无意识地延续着社会性的创伤，应激地陷入父权逻辑中的权力对抗。这个集体意识也隐藏在我们每一段个人关系里。如何保持自我与他人的平衡？如何在临在的状态中表达自己需求？如何允许矛盾存在从而接纳与化解？如何在爱中求真？“柔弱”在崇尚权力的社会中似乎是一个贬义词，但它可以是一种无畏而不卑不亢的力量。当我们去引导水一般“柔弱”的力量进入我们的身体时，力的方向便充满了转化的可能。
这一期「沉洞泉」，我们邀请大家一起，通过递进的冥想、游戏、肢体练习、小剧场…… 探索“柔而无畏”具身化和创造性的表达，一起看见当下的彼此，同柔共弱。
人造天声
Human-made Heavenly Voice
Workshop at TANK Shanghai 油罐艺术中心，during the exhibition Jia Aili: Harsh, 2022
Oracle, myths and epics illustrate the history of the world from another
dimension. They are oral tradition that resulted from the collision and fusion of people, nature and time. It is a collective, spontaneous, and present experience, which, through the recreation of people, spread indefinitely until the moment of its loss. They are “living things” often connected to metaphysical imaginings and reflections, constantly changing before being interpreted by modern reason.
Invited by the TANK Shanghai, this episode of Cenote Workshop recruits a diverse group of people to explore the collective experience of the birth of oracles from three perspectives: language, music and performance.
沉洞泉@祭中祭
Rituals of the Rituals
Performance and workshop at Himalaya Museum/ Yuz Museum, Shanghai, under the group show: Rituals in Rituals of the future: Cowbell, 2021This workshop melts the boundary between social interactions, group practice and site-specefic performance. After an hour of meditation, instructed body movements and energy works, the performance begins by Jia leading two participants sitting in chairs, facing each other. One begins by stating a simple, physical trait of the other person. The other person is asked to repeat this sentence until he/she observes any change of actions and emotions of her/his partners. As the dialogue changes and progresses, the participants move from sitting position to standing, running, dancing, crying, screaming, playing etc.
The connotations of the repeated words become less important as the participants move and act spontaneously. In the last part of the workshop, Jia instructed the participants to choose random viewers to be their partners. As the participants initiate abrupt, irrational and dysfunctional conversations with the viewers, the viewers react accordingly to their immediate emotions, which are sensed by the participants to further the interactions.
沉洞泉@武汉馨润康精神病院
Telling my truth
Cenote Workshop at WuHan Xinrunkang Psychiatric Rehab center，2022In December 2019, a novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan. The city was the location of the first lockdown of the pandemic. Now, 2 years after the outbreak, Cenote Workshop is invited to a psychiatric rehabilitation center in the outskirts of Wuhan to do a series of workshop. Ever since the pandemic, there’s increasing need for psychiatric rehabilitation in the city. This center takes in mostly low-income and homeless patients, and most of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
As hosts of the workshop, we start connecting with the residents by drawing colorful portraits for them, and chatting with them each during the portrait process. After a week of getting to know the residents better though different creative mediums, we initiated a co-creation session started with simple group games, singing and dancing, followed by each of participant picking an OH card and narrating imaginary stories about themselves through these poetic images.
During our stay, we bond with the residents and their genuine souls. We also invited Wuhan creators during this process who continue our workshop there up to today. After exchanging so much fun and creative energy with the patients, we expeirenced that, despite how subtle these moments seems comparing to the large structure, the healing potential of creativity and togetherness can cause ripple effect beyond measure.
通灵物件的记忆
Gift Exchange
2021The workshop begins with a guided Third Eye meditation, opening participants’ intuition. Then, we begin a simple game of clairvoyance, where we hold up the back of a tarot card in front of each participant and ask them to trust their intuition and ‘read’ the front of the card. Some are able to read the cards very accurately. Then, all participants stand in a circle and start a ‘massage train’, where every person massages the person in front of them. Eventually, the circle turns to the other direction for everyone to give back. A poetic self-introduction game follows, called “if you are, then I am…”
The participants then take out the objects they have prepared beforehand, which carry meaningful memories for them. The objects are placed secretly in a separate room. By randomized order, each participant goes into the room to choose one object that they feel connected with, without knowing whose it is. After everyone has chosen their object, we ask participants to use their senses and intuition to touch, feel, listen, watch, and smell the object. In a 5-minute automatic writing session, participants jot down all the information that the objects have conveyed. Then, participants try to reconstruct the memory concealed in this object with a 10-minute improvised performance. In the end, the object’s owner reveals themselves, and responds to the performance. In many cases, the owners respond very emotionally, when the memories resurface in this vivid form.
你是我，我是你
You are I, I am You
2021
The workshop begins with a guided Heart Chakra meditation, then leads into a massage train where participants massage the person in front while standing in a circle. The circle then turns around for participants to give back to the person behind them. Then we warm up our voice with an acapella vocal jamming session. A poetic self-introduction game follows, called “if you are, then I am…” We then use tarot cards to group all participants into pairs, and each group participates in a word game called “find sameness” whereby by free association, two people say at the same time one word that’s in the middle of the two random words they each start with. (e.g. water and window → ‘transparent’) The pair with the best connection (that say the same words within the least number of rounds.
Finally, the improvised performance section of the workshop titled ‘You are I, I am You’ let person A in each pair tell a 2-minute story to person B. Then, the story becomes B’s, and B is to expand the story to be more than 10 minutes. When improvisation begins, B will perform to the music A chose in advance, and with first-person perspective, act out the story in much more detail. The performances will be filmed with a smartphone connected to live-projection, and a ‘live film’ is made in the meantime. In the end, A will respond to B’s performance and tell the original story.
The workshop begins with a guided Heart Chakra meditation, then leads into a massage train where participants massage the person in front while standing in a circle. The circle then turns around for participants to give back to the person behind them. Then we warm up our voice with an acapella vocal jamming session. A poetic self-introduction game follows, called “if you are, then I am…” We then use tarot cards to group all participants into pairs, and each group participates in a word game called “find sameness” whereby by free association, two people say at the same time one word that’s in the middle of the two random words they each start with. (e.g. water and window → ‘transparent’) The pair with the best connection (that say the same words within the least number of rounds.
Finally, the improvised performance section of the workshop titled ‘You are I, I am You’ let person A in each pair tell a 2-minute story to person B. Then, the story becomes B’s, and B is to expand the story to be more than 10 minutes. When improvisation begins, B will perform to the music A chose in advance, and with first-person perspective, act out the story in much more detail. The performances will be filmed with a smartphone connected to live-projection, and a ‘live film’ is made in the meantime. In the end, A will respond to B’s performance and tell the original story.
森林剧
Forest Tableaux
2021Taking place in a forest of a national park, this workshop begins with a guided sitting meditation with a focus on connecting with the natural environment around us. The sitting meditation then progresses into a walking meditation, where we connect with the earth by walking barefoot and with intention. The participants stand in a circle and start a ‘massage train’, where every person massages the person in front of them. Eventually, the circle turns to the other direction for everyone to give back. A game called ‘Shadows’ follows, where groups of two people stand front and back, facing the same direction. With eyes closed, the person in the back leads, holding a gesture without touching the person in front. The person in front senses the energy, and follows with the same gesture as the person in the back.
Participants regroup into 3-4 people each group. Each group draws a card from the ‘deck of characters’, and uses one ‘place’ card and one ‘character’ card as starting points to create a body ‘Tableux’ with the group members in 10 seconds. Attention is drawn to each person’s level and facial expression. Finally, each group draws cards from OH cards, and use the image + text as starting points to create a 10-minute performance in the natural environment. A long rope must be incorporated as a prop.
Participants regroup into 3-4 people each group. Each group draws a card from the ‘deck of characters’, and uses one ‘place’ card and one ‘character’ card as starting points to create a body ‘Tableux’ with the group members in 10 seconds. Attention is drawn to each person’s level and facial expression. Finally, each group draws cards from OH cards, and use the image + text as starting points to create a 10-minute performance in the natural environment. A long rope must be incorporated as a prop.
Collaborative Art Practices
沉洞泉制作Along the rising steam of soup, milk, tears, and urine, you can find a pool of glowing spring water, melting away all antonyms. Mystical, streams-of-consciousness imagery envelops political, collective, and female traumas. Images, words, and sounds act as three channels, weaved together into a trance-like experience and collective musings..."
沿着汤水，乳汁，眼泪，尿液的热气往上爬，会看到一池发着幽光的泉水，融化了所有反义词。玄秘的意象包裹着政治的、集体的、女性的创伤，微妙的更广阔的可能。影像，文字，声音作为三条管道，在晃神的状态中，一瞥沉洞泉宇宙，向内觉察存在于最深处的“无我”，向外用身体、行动在集体的结构中种下觉知的种子。
沿着汤水，乳汁，眼泪，尿液的热气往上爬，会看到一池发着幽光的泉水，融化了所有反义词。玄秘的意象包裹着政治的、集体的、女性的创伤，微妙的更广阔的可能。影像，文字，声音作为三条管道，在晃神的状态中，一瞥沉洞泉宇宙，向内觉察存在于最深处的“无我”，向外用身体、行动在集体的结构中种下觉知的种子。
Cenote Writings
沉洞泉文章
濒死体验之后，我比此前任何一刻都热爱生命
"The Universal Core of Love: My Near-Death Experience"
是修行者，也是愤怒的女性
"A Spiritual Woman, An Angry Woman"
孕育真正超越战争的世界：Tamera和平社区/疗愈生场
"Nurturing a World Beyond War: Tamera Peace Community/Healing Biotope"
在前世催眠里，我看到自己是爸爸的爸爸
"Our Past Lives All In The Present: My Hypnosis Experience"
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