Digital Shrine
From 2012 to 2018 in Calgary’s Historic Union Cemetery, the Digital Shrine consisted of a station on a specially designed table where the public were invited to write tributes and messages with pen and paper. The tributes were entered into a software program on a laptop and this text was projected onto a screen, scrolls slowly and is visible to the public.
Now in 2021 Digital Shrine will form the interactive part of the Equinox Vigil: Virtually Yours. Participants are invited to send tributes to the Digital Shrine: words they wish they had said, heartfelt thoughts they carry with them, or simply the names of the dead. We are inspired by each other’s words, and sharing our thoughts amplifies the presence of the dead in our thoughts and hearts.
Tributes can be sent in advance of the Virtually Yours event at the ‘write a new entry’ on the right.
Background
In 2010, Sharon Stevens mentored with Paula Jardine and Marina Szijarto, Artists in Residence at the Vancouver Mountainview Cemetery, where she learned about the role of the artist in the sacred life of the community.
“In my artwork, I create a safe, unified, audio-visual welcoming space to “collect” stories and messages using interactive technologies including video and visuals. The goal of Digital Shrine is to create a poignant interactive artwork where people can honour the memory of their ancestors and departed loved ones. I am inspired to bring communities together in a unique way to honour, respect, care, and be empathetic for feelings around loss, death, remembering and longing.”
Sharon Stevens
As a media art installation, Digital Shrine consists of a specially designed shrine where the public may write tributes and messages with pen and paper – words they wish they’d said, heartfelt thoughts they carry with them, or simply the names of the dead. The tributes are entered into a software program on a laptop and this text is projected onto a screen, scrolls slowly and is visible to the public. The words light up the night sky and screen like credits at the end of a film and people stay to watch them. We are inspired by each other’s words and sharing our thoughts amplifies the presence of the dead in our thoughts and hearts.
Sharon was invited to bring Digital Shrine to Halifax in October 2015 for Nocturne; Art at Night and to Tucson, Arizona for the All Souls Procession November 2015 see more below.
Watch the 2021 Edition of the Digital Shrine Tributes. Produced by Julian Zwack, soundtrack by Kenna Burima at this link.
Add your message
Please add your thoughts to the Digital Shrine using the form below. Your message will be displayed here and will be included in the Virtually Yours evening.
Nocturne 2015
Nocturne Art at Night
Oct 17 | Halifax, NS
The theme for this year’s Nocturne is “Found & Lost & Found” “We have lost the connection with our relationship with mortality and through this project Digital Shrine, I hope to reconnect us. A ‘found’ relationship” – Sharon Stevens
“Halifax is an old city, relative to the North American context, and its cemeteries are very much a fixture of the urban experience. The Digital Shrine project offers a poignant means for the public to engage with memory and loss mediated through this innovative artistic approach.
Part of the Nocturne mandate is to expose local artists and the public at large with artistic voices and approaches from other areas of Canada and around the world, we are very excited to introduce Ms. Stevens’ work to local audiences through this event and this installation of the Digital Shrine.”
Jamie MacLellan, Public Art Facilitator City of Halifax
All Souls Procession Weekend 2015
All Souls Procession
Nov 7-8 | Tucson, Arizona
Over 150,000 participants take to the streets of downtown Tucson for a two-mile long human-powered procession that ends in the ceremonial burning of a large Urn filled with the hopes, offerings and wishes of the public for those who have passed.
“The kind of ceremony and ancient tradition of honoring and remembering our dead in an artist-led procession is being revived around North America. We are excited to learn of Ms. Stevens’ Equinox Vigil in Union Cemetery in Calgary and her own art project and contribution of the Digital Shrine. We have invited Ms. Stevens to set up the Digital Shrine at our Procession of Little Angels our child and family focused event for approximately 3500-‐6000 people.”
Paul Weir, Technical Director/Board Founder
Tucson Arizona All Souls Procession
“Sharon Stevens curated a high caliber selection of visual art, performance, music, theatre, poetry and writing that created a safe cocoon for very private feelings. In a day and age, when everyone is busy, when less and less people have access to a traditional and/or religious framework that acknowledges and deals with this transition of life into death, with grieving by those who are left behind, this event is priceless.”
Eveline Kolijn Equinox Vigil Artist
Digital Shrine is an approachable, impactful, media artwork that invites participation in a respectful and inviting way. Sharon’s uncanny ability to network, to gain and share knowledge, her business acumen, cultural verve, and her dedication to continue the development of Equinox Vigil to an online platform will ensure the project lives on to honour our dead.”
Xstine Cook, Curator Producer Calgary Animated Objects Society
The Equinox Vigil has become an emotional guidepost in our community’s calendar year. A perennial media art project, the Digital Shrine is central to the spirit of each Equinox Vigil. As a participant in the Vigil it can be surprisingly moving to notice one’s own words surfacing amid other’s thoughts and dedications as they stream out into the cemetery.
Jenna Swift, writer Equinox Vigil Commemorative Booklet, 2016
“I was never able to make it to the Equinox Vigil but was so inspired by it that the Vigil helped push me on to become the facilitator of a Death Cafe here in Charlotte, North Carolina”
Gaye Dimmick
