Resolution: the point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication is worked out. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary25
Closure: A completion, a bringing together of open or unreconciled themes, ideas, and images in a text. Glossary of Critical Terms26
It's not over till it's over. Yogi Berra
A work in progress suggests that an evolution of ideas is taking place. As such, this visual project represents an experiment in the formulation of methodologies for investigating the impact of religious diversity on culture in Houston. Its mission is to examine how visual documentation can represent the geographical, ethnic, and denominational compositions of religious systems. I am interested in refining this methodology so that it becomes an important component in the design of socially useful applications.
I pursued this query through the medium of still photography and discovered that not only is the camera a legitimate and scientific tool for gathering information, the photograph is an effective means through which to evoke the nuances of systematic behavior. Unencumbered by the predisposition of words to bias the reader's perception, the image contains myriad cultural details which it describes with visual language--color, form, texture, light, shadow, and movement. The photograph--a representation of an instant in time and space--communicates its content with immediacy and impact, but persuades the viewer to decelerate and probe its contents.
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The photographs that comprise this visual project reveal a multiplicity of religions, including the major faiths--Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and their almost countless denominational variations. The Houston metropolitan area alone is home to more than twenty types of Baptist ideologies, such as Baptist Missionary, Free Will Baptist, General Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Baptist Fundamental, and Southern Baptist, and the hundreds of churches representing them. Indeed, even churches sharing the same religious principles distinguish themselves through the culture of their particular community.
A brief comparison of two Baptist churches, South Wind Baptist Church and Clear Lake Baptist Church (which I did not photograph but did study) illustrates the difference in their cultural architectures. South Wind has an African American congregation of approximately 100 members, is located in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood, and incorporates traditional African dress at many events. It shares its facilities with a Hispanic congregation, and its main chapel is a small intimate space that could accommodate the entire membership. Clear Lake has a mostly Anglo congregation of several hundred members. It has a vast structure with the capacity to seat all of its members at one time, with several attached buildings for childcare and classrooms, and is located in a white middle-class neighborhood. My observations have been that although they tend to include a hymnal schedule similar to Clear Lake's in their services, the South Wind group participates by singing loudly and waving their arms above their heads, whereas their Clear Lake counterparts are reserved and somber during the singing portions of the service. The contrast could extend to church meals, method of celebration, and function of tithing. These churches demonstrate that their social, ethnic, and geographical locations contribute to the formation of individual and collective identities, which in turn define Houston as a vibrant multicultural conurbation.
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The scope of this visual research, limited though it was by time, yielded a broad representation of the uniqueness of religious practices and architecture. For example, though many groups headquarter their congregations in traditional structures, or buildings that are easily identifiable as places of worship, a significant number of communities occupy buildings originally designed for commercial, educational, or residential purposes. Similarly, each congregation creates its own social environment and expresses this personality through dress, music, language, foodstuffs, iconography and other articles of devotion (or the absence of them), and celebrations.
The photographs that resulted from this visual investigation represent personalities and events that spoke to my artistic, scientific, and human sensibilities, and are therefore not intended to be regarded as the products of objective research. As a cultural being, I am informed by my background, experiences, and surroundings, which act as filters and draw my attention to that which is new and unfamiliar to my senses. My task as a visual anthropologist, therefore, is to be continually aware, attentive, focused, and responsive to the subject I am engaging with the camera. This cultural dialogue is the genesis of collaboration with agents of varying perspectives, experiences, and environments. Such a mutually beneficial relationship enables each party to draw knowledge, share information, and disseminate the subject's fundamental nature.
The outcome of these partnerships is a visual record consisting of more than one thousand images. The editorial process of selecting photographs from this large volume of visual field notes required several reviews of each frame. Each contact sheet yielded various images that evoked, to my mind, the religious culture of each religious space and its congregation. I selected sixty photographs and created a public exhibition
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to be displayed on campus with the idea of making the work accessible and approachable.
This exhibition (held at the University of Houston-Clear Lake campus from March 6 through March 31, 2000), rather than representing the culmination of a two-year project, was a proving ground. During this stage of the project, I studied the effects of bringing to light the cultural details of various religious practices, spaces, and articles of devotion in a public space. It is this phase that exposes this visual document to the public, for individuals to examine, reflect, and respond, where informal dialogue can spontaneously flourish and develop. From the observations of viewer response, I have discovered that most encounters between the photograph and the person looking at it appear, at first, to be fleeting relationships, momentary connections, visits of no consequence. I discovered, however, that most people peruse the space several times and return to particular images for closer examination. The absence of captions compels the viewer to decide how to relate to the picture: as a mirror, which reflects that person's sensibilities, or as a window, which stimulates his or her curiosity.
Some chose to respond to the work by writing their thoughts and reactions in the comments book (for comments pages, see appendix-Comments), others spoke with me directly. Sometimes, I approached the viewers and solicited their comments. Most viewers expressed the idea that all religions have the universal goal of teaching and practicing love and compassion. Others were surprised by the diversity of religion, and a few interpreted the contents as artistic expressions that emphasize creativity in worship, ritual, and artifacts. Several people contended that (their) faiths were not represented or well represented. One viewer believed that one (unnamed) group was not a legitimate religion and therefore invalidated the work.
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The exhibition, as a work in progress, has gone through several adjustments. I moved certain photographs to other parts of the display and changed a few groupings, to study how different presentations of the same material affect viewer response. One viewer suggested that I periodically change or add photographs to highlight the activities, events, and people of other faiths, to emphasize the multicultural quality of Houston, and to show that people worship, meditate, and commune and countless ways.
I will continue to redefine and advance the mission of this project by photographing more religious groups, such as the Mennonites, Pentecostals, Jains, Seventh-Day Adventists, Santeros, Unitarian Universalists, and Wiccans. There are many interesting possibilities for focusing on specific ideas about religious diversity, including the evolution of religious ideologies, religion and its effects on personal identity, and social impact of religion on the construction of collective identity. One venue for developing the examination of identity formation includes making environmental portraits of religious leaders, capturing individual personalities in personal spaces. The visual study of religious architecture will expound on the significance of physical space on worship: design, ornamentation, color, and location.
The resulting photographs will be edited and grouped for the purposes of exhibition in public spaces, and for publication in scholarly journals, religious monthlies and bulletins, and general books and magazines. The images can also be arranged as slide presentations for academic lectures, religious instruction, and other public displays. As the project progresses, its focus will shift to other anthropological concerns, including the advancement of visual documentation as methodology, the development of collaborative ethnographies, in which the voice of the subject contributes substantially to the record (in the form of written response or personal
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photographs), and the investigation of visual language and how it contributes to the dissemination of religious information, including, ideologies, practices, and identity of community.
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