Chakras of Tbilisi
Laura Arena
1st February 2020
We first met artist Laura Arena when she came back to Berlin from her residencies in Tbilisi and Yerevan in October last year. This journey to two Caucasus countries, which are so different in their attitudes, political stance and history, became very transformative to her. Coming herself from a family of an unrecognized indigenous tribe living in the US, Laura was especially sensitive to various colonial lines and perspectives overlapping in the region. She couldn't escape but think about recent and old traumas of the places, and she spent several weeks trying to understand the current forces which are driving them. In this text she lets us participate in the exceptional experiences she has had during the creative process in Georgia's capital.
Sometimes we have to travel across the world unclear on why or what for, to get exactly what we need without even knowing we need it. Finding yourself in a foreign land sitting at a table directly in front of someone you have been waiting to meet your whole life, in my case Rosa Rechsteiner at Sio Cafe in Tbilisi in spring 2018, our meeting a strange twist of fate?
I am still not completely clear what happened on that afternoon sitting in a café surrounded by laptops and lunch meetings. I was invited by the director of the Center of Contemporary Art (CCA), Wato Tsereteli to make a project for the 3rd Tbilisi International Triennial. Our initial plan was to meet and have coffee. Rosa was eager to make contact with me because of my Native America roots. All I understood was that she wanted to energetically work through me as a conduit to work with the Native Americans as a way for her to heal the land and the people. As an energy healer myself I was not afraid of this concept, in fact, I was more curious than anything on how exactly would this work. What I was not expecting after we ordered our coffees for her to say “I need to work with you right now.”
Exposed, I knew she could see me all of me. Here we were sitting together in an amphitheatre full of all my relations with all the narratives, the good the bad – all of it. It felt heavy but also extremely light because I had nothing to hide.
For the first time I was comfortable to invite everyone to sit at the table I felt free. I answered to Rosa ”yes why not?”
Rosa developed her own systematic approach known as the Rosa Rechtsteiner Method which looks at your origin story (family tree/genogram). Through this, she is able to see the patterns and principles that are generational. How we embody our strengths and come up with solutions but also how we embody our weaknesses and blockages. With the Rosa Rechsteiner method, Rosa energetically is able to release our blockages and bring our weaknesses to the surface. Together we made a rudimentary ancestry tree starting with my mother and my father on a napkin. We did not get very far before I found myself eyes closed completely surrendering allowing Rosa to do what she does without even having clear cognizance of what she was doing.
In my life, I often feel like people do not see me. This is not an existential question about my existence rather I feel cancelled out. I step into a room but no one knows I am there. In a conversation, I feel I am not heard or I cannot speak.
This invisibleness moulds how I see myself in the world and the relationships I have within. Based on an identity, a belief system I have created for myself as a half Native American and half White embodying two strong opposing views, the oppressed and the oppressor at the same time.
This experience with Rosa was completely out of sync with my time in Tbilisi thus far. Up until this point, I questioned my very own existence. I landed in the middle of the night with no one to greet me at the airport, with no information on where I stay. It took a week to meet with the man who invited me; the first two times no shows. I became sick upon my arrival and found myself alone mustering just enough energy to go to the grocery store.
On my first weekend out, I found myself in the club raids. I was going to Café Gallery on Rustaveli Avenue but never made it inside - when we exited the taxi we were corralled onto the sidewalk surround by masked policemen. From that moment on there was a constant display of street actions for and against what seemed to me to be about freedom of expression, freedom to be your authentic self under the guise of cracking down on drugs. From Family Purity Day to a protest rave in front of Parliament. Every day the streets were closed and full of people. I, not comprehending all these events nor my surroundings, would awake every morning to a sense of dread thinking what could I possibly do for an art project for the Tbilisi Triennial and what else could possibly happen today?
When Rosa was done and I opened my eyes and I immediately ran to the bathroom. I had to look at myself. I do not remember now if I cried or not, but I do remember looking at my face in the mirror, staring into my eyes for what seemed like a long time or possibly not. My face and my gaze looked completely different but not clear on exactly how.I walked out of the toilet and this woman ran up to me speaking in Georgian. It was the first time in Tbilisi I had been approached by anyone. I told Rosa when I got to the table about the woman speaking to me desperately wanting to communicate to me and she said, “yes because people see you now.”
What I remember most that day was my walk back from the café to my apartment. What was most remarkable was my perception of the world around me. The best way to describe it would be feeling completely whole, so deeply connected and grounded in the authenticity of being. Not disassociated with the world around me but rather my relatives were walking with me. I saw them in the faces of the people who walked past me.
“Aho.”
“Aho.”
For about a week my connection to waking life and my dream life was in constant dialogue rich and full of multiplicity. During this time I dreamt my project. I saw a map of the transportation system of Tbilisi overlaid by a being in lotus position clearly demarcating the chakra systems over the entire city. When I woke up I found myself downloading the transportation map of Tbilisi and photoshopping an image on to the map and there, extremely satisfied was my dream and now my project as clear as day.
This was the first time I fully realize an art project visualized by a dream and to know with certainty this is what I needed to do for the Tbilisi Triennial. Integrating all these deep-rooted emotions brought to the surface by Rosa’s method, shame, guilt, frustration, anger and sadness, all strongly associated with non-acceptance, now integrating them all. Witnessing all of these emotions played out on the streets of Tbilisi, through demonstrations and public displays all around me. Connecting my experience with Rosa and processing it all through the lens of an energetic healer.
With my project Mapping the Chakras of Tbilisi, I realized the city as a single entity and the demarcation of its energy points (chakras). With this perspective, I worked with the land, the people and its history using the chakra principles as a guide.
Considering the city, as a single living organism one need’s to consider, like the human body that the city is a complex structure with different energies, and actions that are always in flux. It is the same with the chakra system. Each chakra is unique and transforms its nature and character based on the other, the functions that they serve and how each chakra affects the whole and vice versa.
The body is composed of many systems, a group of parts that work together to serve a common purpose, for example, the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system and more. All these body systems depend upon and communicate with each other. When our bodies are in balance we have energy, efficiency and vitality. Out of balance we have disease and deficiencies. In cities we strive for the same; a common purpose that is dependent on communication and working together.
I stayed in these seven different locations representing the seven chakras, making correlations between the chakra principles through observation, channelling and research. I mapped out these findings using various methods including design, writing, video, sound recordings and photography. As part of the project, I invited the public to Balance Arts Center / Tbilisi an impromptu centre located first at Stamba Hotel (Tbilisi Triennial, Sept/Oct 2018) and the second iteration in a flat near Republic Square (Artisterium, Tbilisi International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Nov 2018) to share my healing practice centred around Reiki and my findings working in these different designated chakra points in Tbilisi. At the centre, I asked the public for insight into these locations such as history, identity, social activities, and infrastructures. The exchanges became part of my research for her art book (a work in progress), which was previewed at Artisterium, which features the findings of the project.
Laura Arena is a Level 3 Reiki practitioner certified and licensed in the state of New York. She's a graduate of the Art of Energetic Healing School located in Manhattan with spiritual teacher and master healer Suzy Meszoly. Next to being a Level 3 Reiki practitioner, Laura is a multidisciplinary artist, activist, designer, and curator based in Brooklyn, New York. Arena’s work encompasses photography, video, installation, writing, and social interventions with a focus on storytelling, human rights causes, gameplay, race, and identity. She has exhibited in galleries and festivals worldwide and has participated in events in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Arena has attended residencies and workshops in Greenland, Iceland, Romania, Hungary, Palestine, Turkey, and the United States.
In 2021 she will be mapping the Chakras of Berlin as an artist in resident at Z/KU (Center for Art and Urbanistics).
edited by: Kundry Reif