The relationship between religion, nature and art was examined at a recent conference held at the Vatican Museums, organised by the museums and by the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. The focus was on the concern for nature felt in the Catholic world, also highlighting the presence of ecological awareness, as expressed in art and in other religions and cultures.
The initiative was entitled “Religion, Nature and Art” and was held under the patronage of Archbishop Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Governorate of Vatican City State. The event was organised by Laura Hobgood-Oster, a professor at Southwestern University, U.S.A., for the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, and by Fr. Nicola Malpelli and Katherine Aigner for the Vatican Missionary Ethnological Museum.
The papers delivered over the two days of the conference focussed on such subjects as “The Entanglement of Religion and Art: Joseph Beuys, Shamanism and Ritual”; “Representation and Conceptions of Nature”; “Global Indigenous Perceptions and the Sacred World”; “Reading Religion and Resistance in Earth Art and the Book of Nature”, and “Spirituality-based Environmental Activism, Nature, Art”.
The programme of events also included a visit to the exhibition “Rituals of Life: the Culture and Spirituality of Aboriginal Australians”, which was inaugurated last year at the Missionary Ethnological Museum of the Vatican Museums.