The Chicken Chapel of Love is a sacred art project began in 2016 by Big Car co-founder, Shauta Marsh with works from artists: Nasreen Khan (pyrography altar cabinet), Julie Xiao (Fire Mother Mural), Justin Cooper, Jason Gray (design, hand carved doors, cabinet fabrication), Rachel Leah Cohn and Shauta Marsh (design and egg wall)—with commissions of art, performance, music and poems on-going. The Chapel opened July of 2023.
When you open The Chicken Chapel of Love’s hand-carved wooden doors inscribed with the latin phrase Vide cor meum (See My Heart), you’re greeted with pink stained glass windows, gilded gold candelabras, an altar cabinent of woodburnt symbols by Nasreen Khan, red velvet curtains, taxidermy roosters, warm wood church pews, wax candles.
Ceremony and ritual are foundations of modern society. The desire to create meaningful words, movements, and sacred spaces is hard-wired into us regardless of culture or background. Throughout most of human history — all over the world — we’ve integrated one animal into those rituals: the chicken.
The past 3,000 year since domesticating chickens from their jungle home in Southeast Asia they have served as symbols ranging from courage to cowardice to fertility, used for food, consulted by warlords to decide whether or not to go to war, ritual and most recently– life saving vaccinations.
The chicken is the most ubiquitous, overlooked creature yet beautiful ands essential to our existence as humans.
Commissions are on-going.
The Chicken Chapel of Love is made possible by IHCDA, Patronicity and supporters like you!
About Shauta Marsh
A social practice artist, curator, writer, author and researcher, Marsh’s work centers around artist-run culture, race and urban renewal through the lens of the arts, censorship in red states, popular culture’s influence on the pursuit of utopia, urban/rural relationships and artists’ social roles. She writes and produces the Social Alchemy radio programs on 99.1 WQRT LP-Indianapolis, creates public art projects and events via Big Car’s placemaking program, Spark and leads the APLR program. Working with artists who explore identity to bring about social change, she specializes in rapid response exhibitions. She has curated over 50 exhibits with artists including Yvette Mayorga, Saya Woolfalk, LaToya Ruby Frazier, etc.
About Nasreen Khan
Nasreen Khan (she/her) is a writer, visual artist, teacher, and mother. She grew up in West Africa and Indonesia and has recently made a home in Indianapolis. Her teaching and artistic practices, rooted in questions of equity and earth-based spirituality, grapple with questions of belonging; celebrate cultural margins; and confront colonization, racism, and misogyny.
IG: @heyitsnasreen
Website: https://nasreen-khan.com/
