Holding Space:
A Portrait of Healing in the Spiritual Renaissance
Artist Love Hannington documents the global return to ancestral healing practices through live drawing and textured paintings, honouring the revival of traditions once silenced by colonialism and persecution.
The Global Crisis and the Rise of a Spiritual Renaissance
Across the world, people are experiencing a deep crisis of health and identity. In African diasporic communities, physical health outcomes remain disproportionately poor, while mental health challenges are rising on a global scale. At the same time, a quiet yet powerful movement is taking place: a spiritual renaissance. Individuals are seeking healing by reconnecting with ancestral traditions that were once silenced or erased.
Rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes are higher among Black and South Asian groups than white groups
Ancestral Practices Silenced by History
For communities of African descent, practices such as Obeah, Vodou, and other sacred systems were outlawed during colonial rule, forcing people to hide their wisdom and rituals. Similarly, in the British Isles and across Europe, folk healers were persecuted during the witch trials, severing communities from their local herbal, spiritual, and communal healing practices. These historic wounds have left many people cut off from ways of healing that once sustained them.
Documenting the Return to Ancestral Healing
Holding Space: A Portrait of Healing in the Spiritual Renaissance is a documentary art project led by British artist and shamanic practitioner Love Hannington. Through live drawing events and richly layered canvases, the project captures the faces, stories, and energies of this modern return to ancestral ways of knowing. Beginning with an Afro-diasporic lens and later expanding to Celtic and global traditions such as Vedic healing, the project honours these practices while documenting their revival for future generations.
Art as a living archive of resilience
As a practitioner herself, Love understands the importance of holding these narratives in spaces where they are celebrated rather than dismissed as “woo woo” or irrelevant. Each artwork becomes a living archive, a site of reflection and restoration, challenging colonial capitalism’s attempts to commodify or erase spiritual practices.
Holding Space is both art and activism: a testament to resilience, and an invitation to witness the collective healing that is reshaping our world.
Sketches so far...
Invest in the future of cultural resilience and contemporary art
Holding Space: A Portrait of Healing in the Spiritual Renaissance is a one-of-a-kind art project documenting and celebrating silenced Afro-diasporic and global healing traditions through immersive artworks, live healing-based events and exhibitions. We are actively seeking grants, sponsorships, and funding partners to bring this project to life. Your support will directly enable the creation of a living archive that preserves ancestral knowledge, engages global audiences, and positions you at the forefront of a socially conscious art movement. If your foundation, organisation, or grant programme supports contemporary art, cultural preservation, or socially impactful initiatives, we invite you to fund this transformative project and help ensure its reach and lasting legacy.