Peace of Mind and Body

In this series, I wanted to explore the different ways that people find relaxation and faith through their bodies.  Along with this theme is the idea of religion and how the body practices it.  The set was meant to be objective—to provide an insight to how people around me find their own sense of peacefulness.  Talking with each photographed person individually, I discovered what they found to be necessary for remaining happy in life and photographed them in these settings.  I have one photo depicting prayer, another showing a dancer, a third of meditation, and finally one of me running.  What’s interesting to point out about each of these actions is that each is in a way structured—the human body does not immediately know how to pray or run, but is gradually taught how to do so.  However, each provides an extensive level of freedom in how they are practiced.  Prayer doesn’t have towards a certain god or in a certain place; dancing involves moving with how you feel and your abilities; meditation is an art open to freeing the mind; and running allows physical and mental constraints to be challenged.  These photos bring forth the liberty in these activities, showing how at the individual level they provide the relaxation our bodies desire.

I was somewhat motivated in this project by the work of Nikki S. Lee in how she tried to objectively represent different cultures in her photos.  I did not assume the roles of the others—besides the inclusion of my own habit—but instead investigated using people I knew that expressed different mannerisms of faith in their daily lives.  Each photograph has a different depiction of how peace is found, as the same phrase is added to each to connect them.  Using the text does not individually describe the subject of the photo; the person within each is key in understanding how peace varies from person to person.  In this way, my main exploration of personal photography was the idea of how loosely defined a term like peace can be.  Someone may not understand the idea of prayer or the mentality behind dancing, but they can connect to the idea of tranquility made possible by the daily activities one deems important on their own.