Hindu Deities Along the Gulf Coast
The experience of making photographs after Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita was heartbreaking but also riveting; I always brought a friend
or students for company. We explored the
small towns, some completely destroyed, in Mississippi and Southwest Louisiana
as well as the city of New Orleans.
Tables in my studio filled with stacks of 3x5” pictures of color or
black and white objects and landscapes. The images functioned as raw data, documents,
an inventory of loss and the power of nature.
Around the same time I traveled to northern India to
practice yoga and study the gorgeous Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses. Sacred altars for the deities are everywhere;
garish figures made with shiny and homely materials are set against the drawn
mountainous landscape of the Himalayas. I was reminded of the crèche scenes in
rural Europe with their Madonna figures set into grottoes. And then the votive offerings of flowers,
incense, food and prayer reminded me of the mixed Catholic/Voodoo altars of my
friends in Louisiana.
I use both digital and silver photo
processes, sometimes combined with other media.
Hindu Deities along the Gulf Coast
is a series of pigment ink digital prints.
In these hybrid landscapes vibrant religious statues are dropped into
real spaces destroyed by the storms. The figures offer themselves to the
contemporary ruins of the South. This
series gives recent cultural and environmental upheaval another kind of
mythological dimension.
Lord Ganesha in the Den shows the benevolent aspect of the Hindu deity inside
a ruined house in Mississippi. The Elephant God is known as guardian of
doorways and thresholds; he removes obstacles and delivers others. Shiva (seated at Holly Beach) is the god of
destruction and creation. Lord Hanuman, king of the monkey gods, represents
fierce devotion and is called “the one with a broken jaw”. In Tara in the Living Room the goddess
of compassion floats over household objects, arranged like makeshift altars by
homeowners and anonymous visitors to the ruined living spaces.
Lynda Frese