Stream of Atonement | Meditative Video | 2012 | by Paula Rendino and C.M. Judge.

The Stream Atonement series, “Blood on Mine Hands, Blood on Thine Hands” consists of art performance, video, photographs , photo montage printed in tabloid format, installation and writings which were created in the aftermath of the horrific bombings of 9/11.  

Envisioned as a worldwide network of cleansing rituals, the series explores all humanity’s role in bloodshed.  The piece is a prayer for peace and invitation to the community to look to the past, and to make peace, and move on.  Each time the work is installed/performed, the intention is to address the history of that place and inhabitants. 

The American project depicts a middle-class, colonial woman of eighteenth-century America.  Drenched in natural sunlight, she cleans, as woman have for the ages.  She in a pattern of motion descends to her knees, caressing the bowl of water.  She becomes a silent vehicle of atonement for the United States in its infancy for the massacre of the native peoples and for all wars, both just and unjust, including of course, the ongoing conflict with Iraq. While all nations share in bloodshed, this work invites us to take a deep breath and close our eyes to envision a graceful peace, an inner peace that endures, that brings us together in common spirit.  A peace our nation herself needs from within.