How To Make A Magic Carpet

A collaboration between poet Máighréad Medbh and artist Bernie Masterson

The spell for the manufacture and use of a magic carpet was handed down in grimoires and in this incarnation it is four times translated. By Sirdar Ikbal AliShah, an Indian-Afghan author who recorded it; by Gustav Davidson, poet and author, who gives it in his scholarly Dictionary of Angels; by Máighréad Medbhwho made a poem of it; and by Bernie Masterson, who has translated it into a modern visual allegory.

In this work, the use of colour, light, camera angles and composition creates three landscapes: physical, ethereal and psychological. Together they set the stage for a narrative of self-discovery with paintings referenced by John Everett Millais wonderful ‘Ophelia’ and ‘The Lovers’ by René Magritte.

How to Make a Magic Carpetbegins embedded in fabulous green fields with tall yearning trees. Wind has risen and combs almost violently through leaves, grass, a girl’s hair, and a piece of fabric that might become something that flies, a white hope. The physical landscape segues to an inner state, a dance of concentration,the spell being cast, exquisitely represented by an elfin dancer. We progress to the physical effort of it all. We know magic is not a white bird that arrives by itself. It’s a real walking by real seeking feet. Here a slackliner tries balancing on a ribbon. And falls. And tries again. Natural force becomes human force, which generates something like flight, something like imagination, translating pervasive breath of wind into the voice of two singers, seeming to lift us.

How To Make A Magic Carpet | 2022 | 58"