17 November 2008

#65 presented in ARTIST BOOK exhibition, Cyprus


A BOOK FOR A LIFETIME


In the framework of "Year of the Book", my artist book, #65 will be part of the ARTISTS' BOOK exhibition, A BOOK FOR A LIFETIME taking place next Friday, 28 Nov at The Artspace, Moufflon Bookstore and Goethe-Zentrumin, Old Nicosia, Cyprus.





The artist book, #65 was first exhibited at Fotofest Biennale's Artists responding to Violence then at Centrum für Photographie, Stockholm.


installation of Artist's book #65

I visited the Closed City of Ozyorsk with scientists from Columbia University, New York in Dec 2003 (already 5 years ago!!!).

14 November 2008

global oneness project



http://www.globalonenessproject.org/

This is a great example of a non-for-profit creating a dialogue with a holistic approach.

worth keeping an eye on.

http://www.globalonenessproject.org/interviewees




08 November 2008

my video in Peta Lily's Act of Intimacy at Barbican Theatre UK

.

My video made for the performance of Peta
Lily's in ACT OF INTIMACY can be seen this coming week at :
Barbican Theatre, Plymouth, UK
15th November at 8PM.

‘..and then the nun told me, ‘people think we don’t understand passion, but we do, we do….’

ACT OF INTIMACY is a confessional. A performer confesses that she gave up theatre, gave up the flesh and blood and sweat and celebration for sesame oil and spiritual practice. A woman dressed in a business suit confesses that she teaches confidence and aims at success while secretly harboring a love of the loser.

Stories of hunger, purpose, blind impulse, timidity and thinking with the heart….



05 November 2008

AROGYA GIFT OF LIFE : 150 healthy hearts before the year is out



Santosh, 1 year old will have a healthy heart before

the end of this year.




Each child was photographed in front of the red background on 2 Nov 2008 at Sri Narayani Peedam to symbolise that they will have a healthy heart by the end of this year.

Each child here received financial aid from Sakthi Amma's ongoing AROGYA GIFT OF LIFE programme for a heart operation in one of the major hospitals of Tamil Nadu which will be completed before the end of the year.







Kandiabban, 2 years old will have heart surgery
(which will save her life) in the next 6 weeks.


Sakthi, 7 years old


Santhya Priya, 3 years old

04 November 2008

AROGYA GIFT OF LIFE - heart operation recipients


Kowsalya 14 months, with her new heart.


Each person who received a heart operation was photographed in front of a sky blue backgroud (literally a sky blue sari hanging from a bamboo stick)...





Purushothaman, 18 years old received his heart operation 19 Aug 2008. He is showing me his letter of gratitude.



Sivasankari, 21 years old, hospital staff received her heart operation 29 April 2008. She told me she was in hospital for the surgery for 22 days.



Kowsalya 14 months old with her mother.
Kowsalya received her heart operation 5th May 2008.





I found it so moving to meet these individuals and to see that, thanks to this operation, they are given a life, and their parents get to keep their child and their siblings get to keep a sister or brother. The child remains within the family structure, so not just the individual lives but all these families are being so profoundly affected through this program.

It really hit home, seeing these families that there have to go through the grief of the death of a child, but will instead exsperience the joy and appreciation of the continuation of the life of their child.

03 November 2008

arogya _ 150 heart operations given to children in south india

This is the final picture of the day for me - Mohammed Tajdeen is the little boy with his parents.

I had grand ideas of photographing the AROGYA event, where Shakti Amma raised enough money for 150 heart operations for children + teenagers (which at $5000 an operation, is a lot of fund-raising). The event took place on 2 Nov and my grand idea was to photograph 30-50 of the children BEFORE they have their operation + then photograph them again in December...

But it all belly - flopped and I only ended up photographing about 8 of the kids (which in retrospective was EXACTLY what was needed : learning about letting go of what I may envisage is best and being open to what is presented... it was painful to go through but a big lesson in itself). That fine line between having a vision and surrendering to the outcome to the larger forces of Life.


So, although I didn't know it, I photographed the young Mohamed Tajdeen from the moment he arrived.
7.30 am registration
Here is his father presenting the letter of acceptance so that the hospital which will operate shall receive the funds for his son's heart operation.



Here is Tajdeen with his mother, I was sitting next to them as the official ceremony was going on. It was the first time a person had stuck a camera to his face.



Here he is receiving oversized cheque from Shakti Amma (in red), a famous film director (don't know his name) who does very humanitarian oriented films and you cannot see him but behind Tajdeens mother is the Chief Justice of India who gave a moving speech about the importance of supporting human life.



What I love in this little story of 4 images and Nathalie's lesson of letting-be-what-is is that this little muslim boy received funding for a new heart (his new life) in a hindu setting : serving humanity is for the world.

02 November 2008

diwali deepavali - festival of lights


Deepavali, the festival of lights happened on the last new moon - I celebrated it at Sri Narayani Peedam : it was my first deepavali and surely my favourite festival on the Hindu calender.

Here is the sri-chakra (the symbol is the image of my profile) created out of 10 008 clay lamps filled with ghee.


As the sri-chakra is symbolic of the goddess, women and girls were the first to lit the centre
.


The evening ended with blasting fireworks off from the rooftop next to the temple. Normally I am terrified of fireworks - but this was loads of fun.




The shiva-shakti tree on the night of Deepavali, left of the Goddess Narayani Temple.

Every evening between 7-8pm my favourite old priest from this temple teaches the vedas the younger vedic students under this tree.

01 November 2008

sripuram : sri chakra


In continuity with the deepavali photos of the srichakra - here is the giant sri yantra / srichakra at sripuram (where I stayed this past month). The pathway around the temple is in the shape of the srichakra, which means the visitor walks inside the mandela in order to get to the temple.



As the temple sits right in the middle of this giant mandela (and with all the rituals done around and in the temple) - it is very powerful energetically.


Here is a more classic picture of the Sri Lakshmi Narayani temple, taken at dawn last week.