In conversation with spirits.
I think an experience of death of another person should have a ritual. Now this ritual has been lost for a non-religious person live and it has not been replaced by anything, unlike confession or birth, for example. This is the reason why death of another person and reflection on our own death leave such a hole inside.
What happens after death, when we have already buried the body? Does the body just dissolve forever and only memory remains of it? Then why was all this before? Why am I doing, whatever I do, if I die forever?
The question of death is always directly related to the question of life.
I have been working on this project for several months now, trying to get a feel for different beliefs and my relationship to them. I’m making series of photos, when red thread connects real world and world of spirits on the photograph. So at the final object the red thread is physically stitched where it is in the photo and then it goes out of the frame. It’s particular feeling when you see it as physical object.
I was thinking to make an exhibition when all is done. And put a lot of red threads around- so you will pass a corridor and they touch your face or hands.. and you are given one when you leave, so you can put the red tread around your wrist.
Work in progress.
Model: Katie Wilkes
Set designer: Louise Emily Thomas
Prop makers: Mavi Curiel, Louise Emily Thomas
A Tjurunga, also spelt Churinga and Tjuringa, is an object considered to be of religious significance by Central Australian Aboriginal people of the Arrernte (Aranda, Arunta) groups. Generally speaking, tjurunga denote sacred stone or wooden objects possessed by private or group owners together with the legends, chants, and ceremonies associated with them. These items are most commonly oblong pieces of polished stone or wood. Some of these items have hair or string strung through them and were named "bull roarers" by Europeans. Upon each tjurunga is a totem of the group to which it belongs. Tjurunga are highly sacred, in fact, they are considered so sacred that only a few are able to see them and likewise it is considered sacrilegious to publish a picture of them. Durkheim suggests that the name "churinga" is normally a noun, but can also be used as an adjective meaning "sacred".
Model: Katie Wilkes
Set designer: Louise Emily Thomas
Prop makers: Mavi Curiel, Louise Emily Thomas
People buried in the embryo position are found all over the world. I get the feeling that in this way life and death are looped, coming into the natural balance of repetition. And all over the world, handprints are found in sacred caves. As if alive in the past I am trying to tell something to myself in the present.
Model: Daria Sherman
When I was developing this series of photographs with a mask, I thought about Indian and Japanese beliefs, where spirits from the afterlife, creepy and scary at first glance, end up as friends, simply speaking their own, very specific language.
How would this ritual of meeting and friendship with the spirit look to me?
Model: Katie Wilkes
When I was little, I was afraid of mirrors. It seemed to me that through them the spirits were looking at me and could harm me.
Model: Katie Wilkes
is it possible to jump if you are being held? I was often told in childhood: "Do not think about the dead, you keep him in this world with your thoughts and he suffers."
