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Samsara

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From the circle, you follow a path toward the resonant sound of a gong, another sign we recognize from religious traditions as an announcement. The source is a mesmerizing, spinning golden egg encircled by a chaotic interplay of light and shadow. Titled Samsara—a Sanskrit word meaning “to wander in circles,” the sacred Indian script and primal language of the Sinti—the work reflects the Buddhist and Hindu concept of an eternal cycle of death and rebirth without beginning or end. Yet, in this piece, humanity seems cut off from this universal symbol of fertility and birth. Have we drifted too far from our origins?

In some religious traditions, samsara describes the mundane life of pain and suffering, contrasting with the blissful, enlightened state of nirvana. Bamberger’s work depicts this eternal struggle through spirals of toy soldiers shooting themselves, referencing the traumatic, unending persecution of her Sinti existence and her ancestors. Samsara confronts us with cycles in daily and eternal life that humanity struggles to escape.

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A lens for the third eye

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Morena hopes to unlock something in her audience by sharing her inner journeys. She sounds an alarm clock to awaken us from the slumber of daily life. “When you leave the exhibition and return to the forest, it does something to your system.” The exhibition may resonate immediately, touching you deeply and connecting you to a greater collective consciousness. Or it might be wondrous, cerebral, and aesthetic—either way, you carry it with you. “The experience will anchor itself in your subconscious field. Sometimes, a small trigger opens that field, and you understand what I meant to convey. You may not grasp it right away, but you’ll feel it later.” Morena Bamberger invites us into a timeless dimension of creation and destruction, where the old continually gives way to the new. For many, it will be a stimulating introduction to a greater whole, perhaps even the start of personal transformation. You may enter Odapark as a creature of habit, but once back in the forest, might a spark of the wolf you once were return?