Spiritual Friendship
Vandana
2013
Performance
90 Minutes
Kunst (Zeug) Haus, Switzerland
©Vandana The Artist
Courtesy Vandana The Artist & Stiftung Futur
DESCRIPTION
Part of the rituals of self series, Spiritual Friendship takes the most automatic social ritual — the handshake greeting between strangers — and extends it beyond its conventional duration. By holding the contact past the point where social habit would release it, the work opens a space in which the act of greeting can shift from social performance to genuine encounter. The elongated hold creates the conditions for an exchange of energy between two people that the habitual brevity of the ritual normally prevents.
I appear sitting on a stool with my back to the audience, looking down on the photographic work titled, ‘Arrival Departure’ in front of me on the floor. I stand up to greet whoever comes in front of me, keeping the photograph in the middle, with a gesture of shaking hands but elongate the ‘holding of hands’ after the handshake along with an eye contact to become aware of the moments when one may realize the flow of energy between the two people and go through a spiritual experience rather than just a social ritual of greeting strangers whom we meet for the first time.
Vandana 
