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Posted on November 24, 2010

Reconciliation
S. Billie Mandle
November 24 –
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional
  • The inside of a confessional

 

These photographs were made in confessionals, the small rooms found in Catholic churches where people confess their sins. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have theologies of repentance, a sequence of interdependent acknowledgments and responses that must be undergone before the penitent can be reconciled to God. In all of these religions penance must be enacted; it is performed physically as well as mentally and spiritually.

The confessional is unusual in that it is a physical manifestation of an abstract theology; it gives structure and form to the interiority of penance. The walls and kneelers embody the thoughts and prayers of the penitents, and the penitents in turn leave their mark on the architecture. I am interested in how the photographs, as physical objects, might speak to what is intangible and ineffable about these spaces.

I called this series Reconciliation in part because that is what the church now calls the sacrament of penance, but also because confessionals are spaces that contain contradiction. They are rooms that hold darkness and light, sin and transcendence. They are places where people confess their sins and ask for grace surrounded by the remnants of fellow parishioners’ past confessions. Such contradictions are a part of the individual experience of faith that I try to explore with this work.

The act of photographing the confessional has become a ritual for me: I use a large format camera and available light, lifting the curtain of the confessionals and looking into the darkness, just as I lift the dark cloth of the camera. I was raised Catholic and so the traditions of these rooms are familiar to me. In making these images, though, I approach the confessionals as metaphorical spaces – structures that suggest the ways people grapple with the complexities of faith and forgiveness.

B. Mandle CV

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Floor Plan

Amy Rindskopf's Terra Novus

At the market, I pick each one up, pulled in by the shapes as they sit together, waiting. I feel its heft in my hand, enjoy the textures of the skin or peel, and begin to look closer and closer. The patterns on each individual surface marks them as distinct. I push further still, discovering territory unseen by the casual observer, a new land. I am like a satellite orbiting a distant planet, taking the first-ever images of this newly envisioned place.

This project started as an homage to Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30 (I am, ironically, allergic to peppers). As I looked for my subject matter at the market, I found that I wasn’t drawn to just one single fruit or vegetable. There were so many choices, appealing to both hand and eye. I decided to print in black and white to help make the images visually more about the shapes, and not about guessing which fruit is smoothest, which vegetable is greenest.

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Tricia Gahagan

 

Photography has been paramount in my personal path of healing from disease and

connecting with consciousness. The intention of my work is to overcome the limits of the

mind and engage the spirit. Like a Zen koan, my images are paradoxes hidden in plain

sight. They are intended to be sat with meditatively, eventually revealing greater truths

about the world and about one’s self.

 

John Chervinsky’s photography is a testament to pensive work without simple answers;

it connects by encouraging discovery and altering perspectives. I see this scholarship

as a potential to continue his legacy and evolve the boundaries of how photography can

explore the human condition.

 

Growing my artistic skill and voice as an emerging photographer is critical, I see this as

a rare opportunity to strengthen my foundation and transition towards an established

and influential future. I am thirsty to engage viewers and provide a transformative

experience through my work. I have been honing my current project and building a plan

for its complete execution. The incredible Griffin community of mentors and the

generous funds would be instrumental for its development. I deeply recognize the

hallmark moment this could be for the introduction of the work. Thank you for providing

this incredible opportunity for budding visions and artists that know they have something

greater to share with the world.

Fran Forman RSVP
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