Temple of Ultimate Bliss was a five day workshop that was co-designed and facilitated by artists Aoibheann Greenan and Anto López Espinosa for the LungA Art Festival in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland. This performative workshop explored collective myth-making as a radical, embodied form of artistic practice, enabling the imagination and temporary inhabitation of alternate realities. 

The participants arrived with a personal talisman on the first day, the seeds from which the myth evolved. Aoibheann and Anto facilitated the myth-making process through a structured itinerary of practical activities, each one generating the building blocks for the next. Activities included group mind-mapping, creative writing exercises, sigil making, sound recording and Butoh, as a means of developing movement scores from words and images. Enriched by the ideas and input of each participant, the group activated the emergence of an imaginary community with a unique mythology, visual identity and ritual practice. 

The workshop culminated in a site-specific performance that wove itself into the fabric and mythos of LungA. Beginning as an immersive sonic experience in a cinema space, audiences were led to a nearby river where our ritual unfolded.

Images courtesy of Ólöf Helgadóttir