Petra Szilagyi
Artworks
Image credit: Argenis Apolinario, Lauryn Siegel
Muddership expands upon the history of cob architecture—an ancient building technique made from clay-rich soil, sand, straw, and water—infusing it with speculative narratives of extraterrestrial contact. Here, the cob mixture blends sand from the Park with clay from Sheffield, MA—a site of documented UFO encounter. Practiced across continents for millennia, this installation creates a space for prayer, defined by the artist as a form of psychic communication with otherworldly entities. Recent discourse around extraterrestrial contact, including whistleblower testimonies of the U.S. government’s possession of alien technology, informs the work’s exploration of the intersection between myth, history, and invasion—whether of land, mind, or body.
By invoking ancient building techniques alongside futuristic myths, the artist challenges the tendency to attribute intelligence solely to technological prowess, proposing instead a consideration of natural or consciousness-based intelligence. This alignment of technology with nature calls into question the ways in which humanity can learn from both technological advancements and organic processes, envisioning a future of production in harmony with natural systems.
Audioguide
Listen to Petra Szilagyi talk about their research and concept for Muddership.
Transcript
Hi, my name’s Petra Szilagyi. I am an artist who’s showing a piece called “Muddership,” currently on view at Socrates Sculpture Park for the 2024 – 2025 season for the Sculpture Fellowship program. I made a piece called “Muddership” that is a 12-foot tall mud cobb natural built UFO with a roof made out of thatch. Underneath the UFO, there is a round, sort of a merry-go-round shaped prayer structure that can accommodate nine people kneeling and praying facing inward.
00;53 – 01;58
And if you kneel on this prayer structure and look upward into the UFO, there’s a dome that has seven bowls, seven crystal bowls placed within it – selenite and green onyx, that light shines through down into the prayer area. My inspiration for this piece was the UFO phenomenon. I’ve been following the congressional hearings that have been taking place with Defense Department whistleblowers since 2022, and also conversations that have been taking place, particularly within the field of comparative religion scholarship about how this phenomena has very similar, very similar properties, across various spiritual traditions, with those who’ve had UFO encounters.
01;58- 02;36
So similarities within Catholic, and Hindu and Buddhist canons around the world, people having experiences that have similarities to the experiences that, contemporary UFO encounter reports have. And so the theme, the Call from Socrates was a work inspired by the theme “Invasive Species.” And the framing of extraterrestrial encounters, as described by the Defense Department, is always in the context of threat and always in the context of invasion and the unknown. But also having this sort of like material, there’s this question of material, properties alleging that we have crafts and we can reverse engineering technology. All within the scope of, [ … ] the U.S. military, and how it relates to our security.
03;10 – 03;46
And meanwhile there are conversations within the comparative religions field that talk about how this experience – how when lay people not related to the U.S. government experience UFO encounters has more similarities to a religious experience or a spiritual experience. I work with mud frequently, and natural, natural building materials. And in this case, I think it’s a really fertile metaphor.
Mud, being one of the crudest materials available to us, but also one of the richest. And when I think about how we, as a species, try to encounter the UFO phenomenon and also spiritual phenomena. It’s almost as if we have to use very crude, crude tools and crude materials to try to make sense of something that is perhaps beyond our most literal understanding.
04;23 – 04;55
And so this sculpture is an, an invitation, to you know, consider, however crudely – our relationship to the unknown – be it the sort of extraterrestrial unknown or the spiritual unknown. And prayer is a theme that I work with frequently in my work. I’ve made many sort of speculative prayer spaces where people can pray in different ways for different things.
But prayer is just an invitation to try to sort of connect on the level of the spirit or on a nonphysical level with that which is beyond, our, perhaps, perhaps beyond our understanding. The unknown again. I was particularly interested in executing this piece at Socrates because it’s a public park and it has such a strong relationship to its surrounding community and also a destination for people who like public art, and like public spaces that have art in them. Plus, the water is so stunning. And that was also a facet of most recent congressional hearings, was this talk about how crafts are frequently cited coming in and out of the water. So it seemed like a perfect place to hold this sculpture.
06;06 – 06;38
So if you are entering the Park, if you park at Costco, and come on into the entrance – the main entrance, and go straight ahead past the bungalows, just to the right of Mark di Suvero’s old workspace, you’ll see the UFO right there about ten yards from the water, on your left-hand side. And it is an interactive piece. I invite you to kneel and look up, enter into the UFO space, and experiment with prayer. Experiment with communication beyond the spoken word and can consider your relationship with the cosmic and also the local. So the local spirits and place, as well as the unknown – sort of cosmic spirits and beyond. Thanks for listening and I hope you get to encounter the piece.
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About the Artist
Petra Szilagyi (they/them) is an artist and student of the Super Natural. The product of a nomadic Afro-Caribbean/Hungarian, Petra has traveled from Japan, to Nigeria and many places in between, in a calling to seek the inexplicable, the unquantifiable and rich anti-structure spaces. They received their BA from Williams College and are currently working on their Master’s degree in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University.