The Deep Esoteric Council

The Deep Esoteric Council is a participatory research output within The Deep Council Series, an ongoing programme developed by Sarah Perks exploring relational curating, embodied methodologies and collective forms of knowledge production.

Presented at Tees Valley Arts and developed in relation to ongoing ecological research at Coatham Marsh, the performance workshop employed tarot reading, collective interpretation and ritualised workshop structures as creative research methodologies through which participants explored questions of landscape, intuition, future-making and environmental relationships.

Structured around a sequence of meditative and collaborative activities, participants engaged in individual and collective tarot readings focused on each other, Coatham Marsh and imagined futures for the site. Rather than treating esoteric practice as symbolic content alone, the Council mobilised speculative and embodied forms of enquiry as methods through which alternative relationships between people, place and environmental experience could emerge. Extending Perks’ wider research into “wild curating”, the project tested participatory and performative approaches to curatorial practice as tools for generating collective reflection and new forms of situated knowledge.

Presented as part of an ongoing programme of invited and site-responsive Deep Council events, The Deep Esoteric Council contributes to contemporary discussions around expanded curatorial practice, socially engaged methodologies and experimental approaches to artistic research.