The Symbol was made by Ben Judd while on residency at the Banff Centre, Canada, 2009. Judd invited a shaman of European descent to give his reading of the centre and its site; his practice involved Judd more directly than he had anticipated.

Emma Cocker has written: “In the work, Judd and the shaman appear to be testing each other’s limits. There is a feeling of circling, a sense of tension or a feeling of working each other out. Both of them are required to suspend certain judgments – there is a sense that they both have questions or reservations about each other’s practice. There is a line that could very easily be crossed – a spell that needs to be maintained. It seems as though both of them are trying to test a limit without breaking it.”