Religion Today - Spirituality in the Netherlands

Religion Today centred on 71 different leaders of various religious communities in the Netherlands. Each of the leaders has been portrayed in liturgical or religious clothing along with those attributes of his or her particular faith and in the surroundings of that faith. Through these representatives of 71 communities, one not only becomes acquainted with the diversity of religion in the Netherlands, but also with the variety within the communities: Christians from various communities, different groups of Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Now collaboration has been established with theology faculties in five other EU countries to find five typical religious communities for each of these countries that were not yet portrayed in the Netherlands and that are important in these countries, so that these 25 new portraits are a true and meaningful addition. The theology faculties of Middlesex (GB), Tübingen (DE), Uppsala (SE), Charles University (CZ) and Deusto University (ES) are participating in realizing the European addition in 2015. Dutch national daily newspapers Trouw published a 20 week series of articles in 2011. Each Thursday a full page size photo portrait was published along with a text written by columnist Anniek van den Brand which was based upon the accompanying texts written by the religious leaders for the publication. January 2012 Volkskrant dedicated the cover plus 4 pages of the V-section to Religion Today and NRC Handelsblad the cover of the M-section. The photographic portraits were taken with a studio view (4” x 5”) camera. It is not the intent of this photo-series to be a documentary, but rather a series of tableaux vivants of various religious leaders in their place of worship.