Rites of Life

All across the world, people use ceremonies to mark the decisive moments when they pass from one stage in life to another. Rites of Life focuses on such rituals. The idea behind the project was to celebrate global cultural diversity while demonstrating our common humanity: that we are all the same irrespective of culture or religion. The need to mark our most important steps along life’s path is a basic human desire, and it would be hard to imagine a society without it. The form of these rituals changes over time, but the need for them remains the same. For more than seven years, I photographed life cycle rituals in some 20 different cultures around the world. Since the project was supposed to span all mankind, it was important to include all the inhabited continents as well as all the major world religions. Rites of Life was presented to the public in the fall of 2008 with the publication of an eponymous book and an open-air exhibition of photographs at Raoul Wallenberg Plaza in central Stockholm. Several exhibitions in Sweden and other European countries followed, including an open-air exhibition in central London in the summer of 2011. The Rites of Life series presents a selection of images from this body of work.