veronika marks
About the Artist
Veronika Marks is a multidisciplinary artist from Edmonton, with a Diploma in Fine Arts from MacEwan University, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Alberta. Her work explores the outer fringes of human consciousness through an intersection of mysticism, sensuality and emotional wellbeing. She enjoys working with a combination of performance, digital manipulation, sculpture and painting. Each medium informs one another as she moves intuitively through them. Veronika often questions her perception of reality, and the struggle to achieve a higher state of consciousness while being drawn back to human drama, pleasure, and suffering. She revels in storytelling, visions, and community to convey her ideas throughout the art-making process. She often creates separate identities from herself, which allow her to experience new energy and explore unfamiliar material as her mythos evolves.
Sigils of Sovereignty
Stantec Tower – 10220 103 Ave NW
Veronika Marks, final performance from Sigils of Sovereignty, Reality Switch - Last Sigils Performance, 2023
Find your Intention
Create a sigil inspired by your intent on paper (there are no rules)
Hold your paper in your hand, giving energy to your sigil
Place your creation in the sacred container
An off-site ritual performed with your sigils released on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user97719679
ARTIST STATEMENT
While conducting creative research on various projects, I have engaged with shamanic practitioners, occultists, anthropologists, and magicians. I am interested in gaining insight on how diverse groups explore the nature of their realities, process trauma, and find ways to heal. I believe social connection is a powerful tool in understanding and relating to ourselves, those around us, and the world we live in. Through sharing space and clarity with our objectives, we can help each other flourish.
I have always felt a deep relationship to my Nordic ancestry and to the Völva. Völvas were viking witches who practiced seiðr magick. They were often thought of as dark figures, however I believe they were misunderstood.
For my performance Sigils of Sovereignty, I invite audience members to create a symbol of intentional mindfulness and act out an experience of ritual creativity. I will provoke public contemplation, asking the individual to envision one of their greatest desires. Once they have become mindful of their intention, they may invent a symbol which represents their resolution, to be portrayed in the form of a sigil. The individual is being summoned to practice mastering their reality through the magnetic force of manifestation.
In magickal practices, the sigil is used symbolically to depict spirits, energies, and desires. A practitioner would use sigils in cultic ceremonies to summon the energy of the spirit they wanted to gain strength from or control. Over time, sigils have become more personalized to the objective of the “master” who is invoking it. In the end, I hope to have a sacred container filled with your sigils. Once my vessel is full, I will be conducting an off-site ritual performance in your honor, which will be uploaded to my Vimeo account on August 1st, titled Sigils of Sovereignty.
