Immersion

In Hindu tradition, gods and goddesses visit the earthly realm, housed within the vessel of an idol sculpture. At the end of a week-long puja celebration, the entity/sculpture is submerged, ideally in water flowing from the Ganges River (Maa Ganga), to release the gods back into their spiritual world. These immersion rituals have taken a toll on India’s waterways, where new restrictions have been put in place to decrease the environmental impact of this practice. However, that leads to curbsides becoming cluttered with dozens upon dozens of discarded idols, each awaiting garbage disposal without fully realizing its spiritual rites. Photographs were made of these abandoned idols and broken pieces which I then submerged within the Hooghly River of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. This is considered “Ganga water” since it is a distributary of the Ganges River. Boatmen guarded the pieces over several days as tides rose and fell (keeping prints submerged for a suggested amount of time which an idol might be left behind). The artworks revealed the same signs of decay as statues dredged from the river. An image of a cracked Saraswati was collected by the river commission of Kolkata in a clean sweep of the riverbank during low tide. This and another print were said to have been swept away in a strong current during another attempt. Later, a local told me he suspected that it was no coincidence that the same image of Saraswati kept disappearing, as it contained a full likeness of the goddess. For my third effort with this image, I simply dipped the page into the river as a baptism of sorts. I then used string commonly used in puja observance to mend the fracture; however, using a traditional Kantha stitch which is a form of embroidery, not practical for piecing things together. —— As an offshoot of the Immersion series, I brought back a jar of Ganga water, infusing some of my photo emulsions with drops of sacred water. In one image, a bowl, banana leaf and string sat at the edge of a pond after being used for a puja ritual. —- Overall, these works are my way of exploring the complexities of preserving one of the oldest traditions in the world while also protecting one of our most essential natural resources.