WE’VE GOT SANCTITY IN OUR BACK POCKETS - JUNE QUERIDO
We met with June in her studio to chat, go through some of her works and talk about her writing “We’ve Got Sanctity in Our Back Pocket”, an essay she’s developed over the last couple of months. Hiding on her desk were trinkets, over and under pieces of paper and objects hanging from each other. June selected recent works for us to look at, all of which could fit inside a shoebox.
We’ve decided to talk about three particular works to serve as an introduction for the pictures and fragments of text that will follow. Alongside the images, we will post sentences and paragraphs of “We’ve Got Sanctity in Our Back Pocket”, a piece of writing that investigates the value of objects, the systems capitalism keeps in place and how alternative ways of placing value could change our lives. June mentions canonization, rituals, sacred objects, as well as Dutch window displays, nighttime routines and wild women.
1. Pocket shrines are small pocket-sized devotional Christian objects. They resemble small, flattened altars and are used for prayer. Usually, shrines are made of fabric that folds in on itself and is embellished with religious imagery. With her work, Pocketshrine (2025), June produces a ghostly version of this pocket altar. All of the religious imagery is removed and what remains is an empty structure, an arrangement of charms that used to be holy.
2. The necklace, Zestien Haasjes (2025), is an accumulation of 3D printed resin spheres, polished for hours, turning their opaque surface see-through. Each bead contains a hollow hare hopping and running around the neck of those who wear it. The closure is made of a brass bell-like shape, one of childlike wonder.
3. This is a work we didn’t talk about extensively. June simply expressed that sometimes she just needs to use her hands to get out of her head. On her windowsill sat a concrete slab adorned with painter’s tape. The layers of tape shaped a flat double plug onto this wall. This work sat in front of the window, like an altar in front of stained glass.
“Secular rituals still create boundaries, they establish the before and after, marking what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘special’. Our wasted time is meaningful.” (12)
“ I believe we already decided what is sacred or not unconsciously, but what if we were to do so more deliberately? In a world where value is mostly defined by monetary worth, could a return to some idea of sacredness amount to a form of resistance?” (5)
“I feel there is a compulsion to devote ourselves, but to what? If we don’t trust the Catholic Church (or any other) to give us the saints we need, ‘Who or what will offer faith for the faithless and is to answer our quests, our sufferings, and our need to suffer?’” (5) - Here, June quotes James F. Hopgood in “The Making of Saints: Contesting Sacred Grounds” (21)
“We dream of resistance, but it is precisely that dreaming that will pave the way for that resistance. If we start to see windowsills as altars, we might also see the glow around our bodies, and that wild women are our patron saints.” (19)
We’ll be sharing June’s full essay via our newsletter in the near future. Make sure you are subscribed if you’d like to receive “We’ve Got Sanctity in Our Back Pocket” in PDF format.