2015/2017
One month and 600 km of walking. An ancient pilgrimage trail. Three protagonists. Heat, dust, rain. The trouble of carrying - apart from a rather heavy backpack - one's own body and mind.
The number ‘one hundred thousand’ refers to a Buddhist preliminary practice of physical repetition, preparing the spiritual aspirant to enter the path towards enlightenment. It is a practice of emptying the mind of accumulated habitual tendencies and negative deeds, by a repetitive, physical act of concentrated effort.
Pilgrimage in many religions and cultures is seen as a way of emotional and spiritual purification. It is a journey that induces shedding of one’s own ‘old skin’ and a new mental rebirth. Constant repetition of the same simple act of placing one foot ahead of the other, creates a trans-like meditative state. The rhythm of one’s own heartbeat provides a constant sound background to the fluidity of the surrounding scenery. Walking becomes a discovery of being constantly in the flow of things and, yet, at the same time, a dreary act of physical extortion and the boredom of stillness in a constant movement.
Being in flux provides one with a constant flow of images. They happen and multiply like the manifold realities encountered along the way. One moment replaces the other. A wave flows over another wave.
Documentary notes taken with a small, portable camera, while in constant movement. Not stopping for too long to look for the right angle or composition; not thinking too hard about the meaning. Just walking with the camera as a technical diary, a transcript of surrounding visual realities, filtered through the black and white distancing tool of technical image, as a record of momentary, fleeting life as it passes us by.
[a small selection of images here]