How can 200 Strangers Create Collective Identity?

The Venue

Ark unfolded inside a former Buddhist temple in Toronto—a space chosen for its exposed wooden structure, cathedral-like ceiling, and quiet gravity. Across the city, former sacred sites, community halls, and underused institutions often carry a spatial authority that new construction struggles to replicate. By repurposing the temple’s Great Hall, its inherited atmosphere became a communal instrument: a room capable of holding reflection, repair, and connection without erasing the memory already embedded in its walls. In Ark, the building was not a backdrop—it was an active partner in the search for collective identity.

The Great Hall: Two Realms

The hall was divided into two connected realms: the Shrine and the Village. 

The Shrine rose thirteen feet high and eight feet wide, set on a raised platform aligned with the hall’s stage and joined to it like an extension of the building’s spine. Its wooden body was formed by ten hand-carved, petal-like ribs, converging at the base and opening outward like a lotus in bloom—an emblem of purity and a symbol of parts becoming whole. Emerging from a soft mound of natural flora, the Shrine held a sculptural altar with a bowl of water used to anoint each Seed.

The Village served as the gathering space: an antechamber where guests assembled, settled, and prepared to begin. A clear path linked the Village to the Shrine, lined with sculptural vessels. Each vessel held a Seed—a planter cradling a seedling—carried like a quiet promise.

The Journey

To reach the Shrine, participants climbed the venue’s stage and stepped onto the platform before arriving at the altar. The ascent transformed the building itself into a vessel—both a physical route and a symbolic passage toward collective identity. Guests were invited to bring a small personal artifact imbued with meaning—something simple and intimate, like a keychain or photograph—to offer to the occasion.

The Ritual

The ritual began when live music drew nine participants into a spontaneous gathering at the centre of the Village, encircled by other guests. From there, a procession formed and moved toward the Shrine as the remaining guests rose to their feet, bearing witness.

At the altar, each participant:

• selected a Seed,

• spoke a blessing over their offering,

• placed their artifact into a vessel in exchange for the Seed,

• and anointed the Seed with water drawn from the Shrine—an act echoing cycles of care, nurture, and becoming.

The journey then returned to the Village, where blessings, voiced and heartfelt, met each Seed alongside the performer’s steady melody. This sequence repeated until everyone had completed the exchange, culminating in a final musical offering that sealed the space as both artwork and rite.

Reflections & Release

Immediately after, the room transitioned into open conversation. Guests shared what they felt—quiet reflection, visible emotion, and, for some, tears. For a moment, the communal acts produced a palpable solidarity: a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself. For those who joined the procession, the gaze of the assembled community felt like a supportive force, gently propelling them forward.

Yet others expressed unease with the intensity of the atmosphere—its closeness to religion. That tension became part of the experiment’s truth. What Ark revealed was not consensus, but a threshold: a participatory experience that could inspire belonging and also resistance, illuminating both the potency and the risk of ritual in a plural public.