This weekend I went for a walk to Dupont and stumbled across the National Geographic museum. I went inside and saw a really incredible photography exhibit. The exhibit, called Sacred Waters by John Stanmyer, is a collection of images from around the world featuring people's beliefs and relationship with water in a spiritual sense. Here is a link to their website about it:
First the setting for the exhibit was perfect. It was a sun-filled room where you could see the sculpture garden outside. My favorite images were of people bathing in hot springs in Turkey and an amazing amount of people swimming in a waterfall in Haiti.
The images were from every corner of the world, taken in Haiti, Turkey, Laos, USA, and Japan to name a few places. The photographs gave a beautiful look into beliefs and customs that we rarely see in America. They showed how integral water is to so many cultures. Going to a school that was a combination of Buddhist/Catholic/Protestant faiths, I have seen water used in many sacraments and ceremonies. In many literary senses water is seen as cleansing and purifying. One image that I really identified with showed people washing their feet before entering a mosque. A quote below says something like "half of the faith is cleanliness."
It is a very interesting and extremely beautiful set of images that show a natural resource we so often take for granted in an entirely new light. I would definitely recommend checking it out!
No comments:
Post a Comment