The Thresholds of Faith exhibition brought the presence of the Sisters of the Holy Cross living in Sao Paolo, Brazil into St. Ignatius Church, live via Skype sessions. Over the course of six months, the Sisters skyped with the St. Ignatius congregation and the general public to share their views on social justice, compassion, education and transformation, and how these concerns manifest through their work.
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Truly Sisters
I have long admired my Aunt June Ann Kirby. She is a Sister of the Holy Cross, a Catholic order founded in 1837 by French nuns who came to Indiana in 1843, by way of Quebec, to start a college for women. My Aunt follows the mission of her Order:
. . . Compassion moves us to reflect on the signs of the times, discern needs and respond.
We stand in solidarity with the poor and the powerless . . .
My Aunt’s mother, my grandmother, took me to church as a child and taught me the rosary, but my relationship to the Catholic faith is clouded by the Church hierarchy’s engagement in contemporary life.
On a trip to visit my aunt in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she has lived for the last 47 years, I met her fellow Sisters, mostly American and Brazilian, and some from around the world.
My first trip to Brazil occurred during the period in which Pope Benedict XVI was cracking down on nuns, in orders all over the world, for their independence. It is this independence that I found so powerful. Inspired by the Sisters’ devotion and compassion, I recently returned to Sao Paulo to collaborate on this project with my aunt and her fellow Sisters. – Lynn Marie Kirby
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FULL LIST OF SKYPE SESSIONS:
JANUARY
Sunday, January 12th | 12pm San Francisco (6:00 PM Sao Paulo)
Lynn Marie Kirby Skype Session #2, Sister June: Compassion
FEBRUARY
Sunday, February 16th | Noon San Francisco, (6:00 PM Sao Paulo)
Lynn Kirby Skype Session #3, Sister Michael: Social Justice Work in Brazil
MARCH
Sunday, March 16th | Noon San Francisco, (6:00 PM Sao Paulo)
Lynn Kirby Skype Session #4, Sister Angela: Heart, Art, and Dance
APRIL
Sunday, April 13th | 1PM San Francisco, (7:00 PM Sao Paulo)
Lynn Kirby Skype Session #5, Sisters Anne and Diane: Education
MAY
Sunday, May 4th | Noon San Francisco, (6:00 PM Sao Paulo)
Lynn Kirby Skype Session #6, Sisters Catharine, June, and Diane: Community
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Lynn Marie Kirby’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Olympic Museum, Sarajevo; the Pompidou Centre in Paris; Arsenal in Berlin; Manage in St. Petersburg; Portland Museum of Art; the Kennedy Center and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC; the Hammer Museum and LACE in Los Angeles, The Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley; the Oakland Museum in Oakland; the San Francisco Cinematheque, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the de Young Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and Triple Base Gallery in San Francisco.
Kirby’s films and videos have shown at film festivals around the world including Oberhausen, Toronto, London, San Francisco and Athens. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Djerassi Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Film Arts Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Kelsey Street Press and The Arts Commission in San Francisco. She is a Professor at the California College of the Arts and teaches in the MFA Program in Fine Arts, the Film program and the Interdisciplinary Program. She studied at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris, also attending University in France and Sweden before receiving her BFA in sculpture and an MFA in film from the San Francisco Art Institute.