Session 3:
11/06/25
2-4pm
11 June 2025
Holy Trinity, Prince Consort Rd
London SW7 2BA
Teresa Calonje / Louise Nelstrop / Elena Unger
Christian mysticism and the apophatic in performance art
Panel discussion chaired by Teresa Calonje.
free tickets now available via Eventbrite
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Film Still: “Now I am yours” (1992) Nina Danino
Panel chaired by Dr. Teresa Calonje. This panel will explore recent interest in Christian mysticism and the apophatic in Performance art in particular and in the writings of Anne Carson (2005), Julia Kristeva (2008) and Fred Moten (2013).We will approach questions around Christian mysticism and its appropriations innocently and with care, as Dr Louise Nelstrop puts it, in order not to pull things out of shape. What is a return to mysticism responding to or reacting against? What in Performance art can relate to the mystic embodied experience? What is mysticism without the Bridegroom? What is gained, what is lost as the mystical experience (which is given and intimate) becomes object of thought, is written down, and eventually becomes a constructed artwork, technê?
Teresa Calonje
Bio
Dr. Teresa Calonje focuses her research on questions of the body and its multiple forms of appropriation. Her PhD in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London was concerned with performance art's bodily gestures and how these have come to be legally owned and sold on a market. In 2014, she edited Live Forever: Collecting Live Art (Koenig Books) and is an occasional curator.
Louise Nelstrop
Bio
Louise Nelstrop is professor of Church History at the PThU, Netherlands, and a non-stipendiary lecture in Theology at St. John's College, Oxford. She has published widely on the Middle English mystic and mysticism more generally, including on the relationship between mysticism and the arts. Her short documentary film, Complete Surrender, which followed artists engaging with the work of Hadewijch and Marguerite Porete, won a number of awards. She is also founder and co-convenor of the Mystical Theology Network
Elena Unger
Bio
Elena Unger (b. 1997) is a Canadian artist based in London whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation. At its centre are meticulously rendered apocalyptic oil paintings, executed with three-haired brushes on either a miniature or monumental scale. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Goldsmiths, and the University of Cambridge, where she studied Philosophical Theology, Unger explores the ontology of artistic making—arguing that art participates in, rather than merely represents, the divine. She is currently Artist in Residence at Saint Bartholomew the Great, where she curates immersive, large scale exhibitions in the ancient church. Unger was a CHASE Research Fellow in Philosophy and Art and is a recipient of the Freedom of the City of London.
with thanks to Revd Jennie Adams
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2-4pm
11 June 2025
Holy Trinity, Prince Consort Rd
London SW7 2BA
Teresa Calonje / Louise Nelstrop / Elena Unger
Christian mysticism and the apophatic in performance art
Panel discussion chaired by Teresa Calonje.
free tickets now available via Eventbrite
Film Still: “Now I am yours” (1992) Nina DaninoPanel chaired by Dr. Teresa Calonje. This panel will explore recent interest in Christian mysticism and the apophatic in Performance art in particular and in the writings of Anne Carson (2005), Julia Kristeva (2008) and Fred Moten (2013).We will approach questions around Christian mysticism and its appropriations innocently and with care, as Dr Louise Nelstrop puts it, in order not to pull things out of shape. What is a return to mysticism responding to or reacting against? What in Performance art can relate to the mystic embodied experience? What is mysticism without the Bridegroom? What is gained, what is lost as the mystical experience (which is given and intimate) becomes object of thought, is written down, and eventually becomes a constructed artwork, technê?
Teresa Calonje
Bio
Dr. Teresa Calonje focuses her research on questions of the body and its multiple forms of appropriation. Her PhD in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London was concerned with performance art's bodily gestures and how these have come to be legally owned and sold on a market. In 2014, she edited Live Forever: Collecting Live Art (Koenig Books) and is an occasional curator.
Louise Nelstrop
Bio
Louise Nelstrop is professor of Church History at the PThU, Netherlands, and a non-stipendiary lecture in Theology at St. John's College, Oxford. She has published widely on the Middle English mystic and mysticism more generally, including on the relationship between mysticism and the arts. Her short documentary film, Complete Surrender, which followed artists engaging with the work of Hadewijch and Marguerite Porete, won a number of awards. She is also founder and co-convenor of the Mystical Theology Network
Elena Unger
Bio
Elena Unger (b. 1997) is a Canadian artist based in London whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation. At its centre are meticulously rendered apocalyptic oil paintings, executed with three-haired brushes on either a miniature or monumental scale. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Goldsmiths, and the University of Cambridge, where she studied Philosophical Theology, Unger explores the ontology of artistic making—arguing that art participates in, rather than merely represents, the divine. She is currently Artist in Residence at Saint Bartholomew the Great, where she curates immersive, large scale exhibitions in the ancient church. Unger was a CHASE Research Fellow in Philosophy and Art and is a recipient of the Freedom of the City of London.
with thanks to Revd Jennie Adams
