And
Despite the fact that over time different practices and rituals have evolved inheriting and fusing traditions hundreds of years old, it is quite common to see the pagantistic being opposed to the Christian in the modern world. By trying to explain ways that constitute the human spiritual reality one often ends up with clashing categories. Meanwhile, they co-exist side by side in the everyday life just like the ancient worshiping grounds that have remained nearby churches or the pagan symbols in the repertoire of the national folk song festival. Over time, some traditions tend to lose their original meanings and gain novel content and substance.
The title of the series And, which also happens to be the most used word in the Bible, has been chosen as a contradictory reference to the thematically vast scope of the subject – the religious “and” the paganistic, where “and” serves as the connecting, non-opposing conjunction. The pagantistic and the Christian – these realities both are parts of the human experience. The question that remains with “and” is whether this dynamic needs to be resolved or opposed at all?
Reinis Hofmanis (1985) is a Latvian photographer who has studied Visual Communications at the Art Academy of Latvia and photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover, Germany. He has participated in group as well as solo exhibitions in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Portugal, Iceland, Canada, Singapore and UAE. His works have been published in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Spiegel, Esquire, Bloomberg, Le Monde, The Globe and Mail, The British Journal of Photography and other media.
