When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved

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      Mariam Ghani, Erin Ellen Kelly, When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved, 2019, three-channel video, color, sound; 23:36 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 2021.23.1, © 2019, Mariam Ghani and Erin Ellen Kelly

      Artwork Details

      Title
      When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved
      Date
      2019
      Location
      Not on view
      Copyright
      © 2019, Mariam Ghani and Erin Ellen Kelly
      Credit Line
      Museum purchase
      Mediums
      Mediums Description
      three-channel video, color, sound; 23:36 minutes
      Classifications
      Subjects
      • Figure group
      • Recreation — church
      • Architecture Exterior — religious — church
      • Architecture Interior — religious — church
      • Landscape — Kentucky
      • Performing arts — music — voice
      • Recreation — dancing
      Object Number
      2021.23.1

      Artwork Description

      In their collaborative series, Performed Places (2006--ongoing), Ghani's filmmaking and Kelly's choreography excavate layers of memory and meaning enmeshed in historic sites. Through archival research and by responding to remnants of a given spaces' former life, they develop movement, narrative, and video choreography that reanimates the past.

      When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved engages Pleasant Hill, Kentucky's Shaker Village, a nineteenth-century settlement where the preserved architecture and landscaping convey Shaker spirituality. Rooted in principles of simplicity, shared resources, and racial and gender equality, Shaker communities offer a utopian alternative to the primary settler-colonial values that shaped the United States at its founding.

      Ghani and Kelly began with first-person accounts from the community's archives, assembling a textual score that guided a daylong performance. Through hymns that become rhythmic stomping and folk dances that become frenetic movements, the work traces the emotional and spiritual arc of weekly worship meetings in which spiritual gifts overtake believers' bodies. In the three-channel video, this performance is distilled from twelve hours into the choreographic journey shown on the central screen. On either side, mirrored shots of the serene environs emphasize the ordered design of Shaker life outside these chaotic convenings.

      Projected life-size with surround sound, the video invites audiences to imaginatively step into this space and join this transformative gathering. The related photographs invite slower reflection on Shaker ways of being-in-common.

      Works by this artist (4 items)

      Tom Nakashima, Sanctuary at Western Sunset, 1992, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Gail and John Enns, 2008.38
      Sanctuary at Western Sunset
      Date1992
      oil on canvas
      On view
      Tom Nakashima, Great Stick, 1990, handmade paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Gail and John Enns and museum purchase, 1991.68
      Great Stick
      Date1990
      handmade paper
      Not on view
      Tom Nakashima, Samurai, 1990, two-color etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Anton Gallery Partnership, 1991.37.2, © 1990, Tom Nakashima
      Samurai
      Date1990
      two-color etching on paper
      Not on view
      Tom Nakashima, Cage, 1990, hand-colored etching and photo etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Anton Gallery Partnership, 1991.37.1, © 1990, Tom Nakashima
      Cage
      Date1990
      hand-colored etching and photo etching on paper
      Not on view

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