Cory Feder & Diego Medina
Wonder Holy Ladder
June 11, 2022 – July 23, 2022
Wonder Holy Ladder is a collaboration between Santa Fe based Cory Feder and Las Cruces based Diego Medina (Piro-Manso-Tiwa). Exploring the mythos of transcendence and the allegorical use of ladders, a symbol for human communication with the divine that appears in many spiritual traditions throughout time, this exhibition presents new works on paper and wood, and ceramic vessels and sculptures.
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Symbols are sanctuaries of knowledge built by ancestral hands for our prayerful return. They offer a space for magical transformation between the sensory and the spiritual to occur. They are cultural, synaesthetic, mnemonic, and historical and therefore reach us on a deeply sapient level that transcends time and individual narrative.
Wonder Holy Ladder partly derives its name from the allegorical symbol of Jacob’s ladder, a symbol used in the esoteric tradition to explain the process of spiritual initiation. This anagogical process of spiritual ascent is accomplished through the medium of allegorical symbolism and the law of analogy. The physical body thus is the setting by which the myth becomes matter. The Jacob’s ladder allegory is a story of angelic intervention, ascension, transcendence, transformation, and enlightenment that can be understood through correspondence of the internal landscape of the body, the external geography of physical reality, and the unseen order of the spiritual realm. The symbol of the ladder becomes the compound key by which the doorways of arcane understanding and practical application of the knowledge attained are opened. The ladder is also a globally recognizable symbol of ascension between different spiritual planes that asks to be understood and then climbed. In particular the ladder has an important symbolic purpose in the ceremonial traditions of the Puebloan communities in New Mexico.
The work in this show presents new allegories for the mystical journey, bringing together the traditional symbolism of ancestral stories of transcendence with whimsical, poetic visuals.
The various symbolic ladders in our lives transport us between worlds, allowing us to travel the landscapes of our ancestry, the idyllic gardens of magic, the celestial canopy of macrocosmic configurations, and the heavenly realms of divine wisdom. Wonder Holy Ladder is an opportunity to explore the symbolism of our own wonderful, mystical journeys and contemplate the process of our own climbing.
Exhibition statement by Diego Medina
Diego Medina was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico and is a member of the Piro-Manso-Tiwa tribe. Diego currently serves as Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for his tribe and has a ceremonial role. As an artist, Diego’s work illustrates intricate, magical metaphors that combine cultural knowledge and ancestral wisdom with playful and passionate fantasy imagery. Diego also creates cartographical and poetic illustrations that bring together ecological and cosmological knowledge within the process of prayer. For Diego, prayer is the finest art because it informs our conscious will, our expressions of love, connects us with sacred ancestral wisdom, and strengthens our spiritual kinship. In addition to creating visual art, Diego is a published poet and a cultural enthusiast who has a deep passion for archival research, borderlands Indigenous history, and Pueblo traditional and esoteric knowledge.
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Cory Feder is a Korean-American illustrator, animator, musician, dancer and sculptor. Raised in Denver, Colorado, Cory’s work explores identity through community and - inversely - community through identity. Her work explores human tenderness through nature, folklore, and the divine. Through her re-interpretations of Korean and Jewish mythology, woven with her own interactions with the natural world, Cory builds a bridge between the past and the present; present and the future.
