The Serpent Twins
The Serpent Twins
We received an Honorarium Installation Grant from Burning Man for 2011. Rites of passage was the theme for the year and we felt a pair of serpents representing the old and the new of BM would be perfect.
Our project was very well received and enjoyed by the 50,ooo attendees
We are now seeking paid venues interested in seeing these wonderful creatures perform
Dark and with the power of fire, the serpent Jormungand winds it way through the landscape. Bright and with the light of the earth, the Julunggul serpen
t slithers to meet with her dark twin. They both have a function within mythology. The earth was shaped by Julunggul, who later swallowed it and all it contains in a fit of anger; then regurgitated it to restore the earth as it was. She helps the denizens of the world by swallowing boys and spitting them out as men, completing their rite of passage. The world was encircled by the serpent biting his own tail, Jormungand, until he decided to destroy it. Man’s champion, Thor, was the only one who could stop the serpent from ending everything with his fearsome anger seething in the depths of the ocean.
The Jormungand (Midgard) and Julunggul (Rainbow) serpents sit between 2 worlds; the old world that needed and revered them and the present which has shunned such monsters as fears metamorphosed into mythical form. Our present world has left behind these harbingers of destruction and physical embodiments of “the ultimate task” (usually the task of slaying such beast) as so much fantasy. Much as a child puts away his imaginary playthings when he becomes an adult, the dreadful serpent that exists in so many of the world’s cultures’ myths has been put aside. All these now modern civilizations went through this same rite of passage; that of dismissing myth and legend to depend merely on science and fact. Our two serpents will render in metal and cast off materials these mythical beasts by using modern science; restoring ancient mythos to the Burning Man community.
