Feature

Paul Tecklenberg

Artist in Residence 2010

Paul Tecklenberg is our first 'artist in residence'. His work here will become an integral part of Swedenborg House: Fourteen Interventions in 2010. Paul is a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, and has exhibited in a number of critically acclaimed shows. In 2008 he was elected to be a life member of the London Group. Paul is setting up specifically adapted pinhole cameras around the building, to capture light and movement in Swedenborg House, from dawn to dusk. In many photos, the image remains in negative, so that dark objects appear light and light objects appear dark. This is a direct reference to Swedenborg's complex conceptions of light in Heaven and Hell. In the 'true' light of heaven, worldly light seems dark and gloomy; the sun is a black disc.

Swedenborg, also a keen lens grinder, wrote extensively about optics and on the camera obscura; by using a pin hole camera Paul hopes to pay tribute to Swedenborg's scientific interests. Each image takes at least four minutes to take shape, so these photographs embody the passing of time, and thus a 'fourth dimension' ... Paul is also creating a sound installation for the bicentenary art show - for which he needs your help!

More information on Paul Tecklenberg can be found here on our website and at www.paultecklenberg.com.

Documentary Screening: D T Suzuki: A Zen Life by Michael Goldberg

Brunei Gallery, London School of African and Oriental Studies

No admission fee, but booking recommended

D T Suzuki (1870 - 1966) proclaimed Swedenborg to be the 'Buddha of the North'. Suzuki was a similarly fascinating figure, a thinker of remarkable insight, engaged with both Eastern and Western traditions.

Internationally renowned for introducing Buddhist ideas to the West, Suzuki will be known amongst readers of Swedenborg as the scholar who introduced Swedenborg to the East. In the preface to his Japanese translation of Heaven and Hell (1910), Suzuki stressed the urgency of Swedenborg's writings in the context of an increasingly materialistic society; 'those who wish to cultivate the spirit, those who bemoan the times, must absolutely know of this person. This is the reason for this book.' According to Suzuki, religion is not anathema to modern society; belief in a higher 'truth' is essential to human fulfilment in every culture - old or new, East or West. In A New Interpretation of Religion (1895), Suzuki argued for a 'universal truth' which unites all men and all religions. In order to achieve this religion must co-exist with freedom of thought and religion and science must be mutually instructive. In this way, Suzuki echoed the concerns of Swedenborg; both rejected arbitrary distinctions between faith and reason. Carl Jung was a keen reader of Swedenborg and Suzuki, finding support for his argument that the human psyche is 'by nature religious' and necessitates 'individuation'.

Suzuki is now identified as the father of 'Buddhist Modernism', a universalist approach to Buddhism. Similarly, Swedenborg envisaged a spiritual commonwealth or 'New Jerusalem' which transcends divisions of nation, doctrine, time and space. Both thinkers sought to redefine the divisive concerns of their age.

See Buddha of the North by D T Suzuki and Testimony to the Invisible, edited by James F Lawrence. Both are available in our bookshop. Book your place for the screening by contacting Tadeusz Skorupski, at ts1@soas.ac.uk or on 01442 890882.