Collective Consciousness
April 9 – July 2, 2021
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BAC Collective Consciousness Virtual Gallery
Venue:
Beacon Street Art Gallery
In this exhibition, eight artists tap into the collective consciousness to create works that resonate in various ways with the larger community.
The collective consciousness informs our sense of belonging and identity and our behavior. In 1893, sociologist Émile Durkheim developed this concept to explain how unique individuals are bound together into collective units like social groups and societies. The authenticity of collective consciousness necessitates human participation to provide it with a deeper meaning and its fundamental essence of reality.
The notion of a collective consciousness was amplified by the emerging popularity of psychoanalysis in the 20th century. Carl Jung coined the term collective unconscious to denote the shared contexts and meanings of an individual’s dreams. According to Jung, there is a pre-experiential set of mythological motifs, combinations of ideas, or images found in the myths of one’s folk or in those of other races that yield a collective meaning. This meaning is the common property of all humankind.
This exhibition will present a fresh look at how individual artists interpret shared perceptions, images, and beliefs.