Rebirth

If you’re lucky, or work at it, the regularity of life is occasionally marked by transformative moments that create a bridge between dispirited endings and promising beginnings. Anna Hennessey’s immersive art installation, Rebirth Tunnel, offers an intentional exploration of such junctures. 

Hennessey had a cathartic experience on a trip to Ireland with her kids. She wanted to reconnect with her Irish American family’s ancestry but was wary of a place associated with people that’d caused her considerable pain.

“I think I went because I need to say goodbye but also reconnect to the Earth and to my ancestors,” said Hennessey. “I decided I wanted to mark that moment in some way, so I told my children and wrote out all the names of my family members along with some of the events that had happened. We went by the River Shannon, I read aloud what I wrote, and then the three of us ripped up the paper and we buried it in the mud by the river. I thought it was just something that I needed to do to mark that moment, but it actually made me feel like a changed person.”

Hennessey, who has studied rebirth through art in different cultures and is cofounder of the San Francisco Birth Circle, decided to create a passageway for others to transform their lives. With funding from The American Academy of Religion, Western Region (AARWR) she installed her first “Rebirth Tunnel” at the annual AARWR conference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas last year. Participants reacted positively to the piece.

“It was a very diverse crowd and pretty much everybody had some foundational experience,” mentioned Hennessey. “People later wrote to me just to say how special it was for them. A middle-aged man and his wife who had gone through the Rebirth Tunnel mentioned that it was life-changing for them, and that they hoped their 20-something year old son would be able to do it someday. So, it seems meaningful for people.”

A “Rebirth Doula” and “Midwife” guide visitors through the journey. Participants first step into “Re-Conception Pods,” enclosed chambers designed for quiet reflection. They’re prompted to take five deep breaths to center themselves before writing down an aspect of their lives they wish to release or transform. They then proceed alone under the Rebirth Tunnel, where positive affirmations resound, reinforcing a sense of hope and renewal. At the trip’s midpoint they encounter a “Renewal Box,” a symbolic station where they can tear up and discard their writings, physically releasing past trauma, welcoming new possibilities. Emerging from the tunnel, the participants sign and receive a “Rebirth Certificate.”

After installing the Rebirth Tunnel in other locations, Hennessey collaborated with Jennifer Dhillon of the Bounce Back Generation (BBG), a nonprofit organization started in Potrero Terrace-Annex, to mount it at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House (Nabe) last month. BBG’s mission is to help Hill youth respond with resilience to adverse childhood experiences and traumas. Its previous projects include the Walking School Bus and Family Laid Back Nights. The Rebirth Tunnel was featured alongside BBG’s film about how public housing residents have become stronger even after undergoing numerous ordeals. 

“Unfortunately, we had to shut everything down when COVID hit, so we started to film our experiences through those years,” reflected Dhillon. “Now it’s almost five years later, and we’ve become a nonprofit media company that helps people develop their own tools for resilience while still working with public housing. Anna reached out to me for a mini grant from BBG, and we started talking about doing this together and getting the community involved.” 

The Rebirth Project is also supported by the Luce Foundation and American Academy of Religion for Art in Public Spaces. Hennessey plans to install another Rebirth Tunnel at the Harvey Milk Center for the Arts in the Haight this summer.