Deep Maps

January 4, 2006

Festival of Oshun (Harbor Series #3)

Oshun or Osun is a Yoruba goddess that is associated with erotic beauty, gold and rivers. Awo Osun, a New York society of Oshun worshipers, gathers by the Hudson River every summer to honor the deity and pay respects to ancestors. Everyone comes dressed in white, as is customary for Yoruba festivals. I unfortunately showed up dressed in black. But I was warmly welcomed and no one seemed to mind that I was running around with a video camera. The Priest calls on Oshun with song. He then uses ginko nuts to perform a reading. I love the idea that the Hudson and East Rivers are inhabited by deities from the worlds religions.

This video was shot in July of 2003. The Harbor Series is a series of short videos about the ritual and cultural uses of the New York waterfront and was inspired by the Village Voice article: Holy Waters, by Erik Baard

Fort Washington Park, Manhattan, 2003
runtime: 00:04:50

5:04 PM | TrackBack

December 19, 2005

Obon Festival (Harbor Series#2)

In the summer of 2002, The New York Buddhist Church and NY de Volunteer came together to organize a traditional Japanese floating lantern ceremony to commemorate the victims of 9/11. The Bon (or O-bon) Festival is a Japanese holiday to honor the departed spirits of the ancestors. Families make or buy paper lanterns on which they write messages to the deceased. The lanterns are then let out onto a body of water and float into the darkness.

Easier said than done in New York City. The organizers had to first make their lanterns from scratch and then get permission to let floating candles out into the harbor. Permisson was granted on condition that all lanterns be retrieved. In a uniquely New York story, the city's kayaking community joined in the effort.

This video was shot in August of 2003. The Harbor Series is a series of short videos about the ritual and cultural uses of the New York waterfront and was inspired by the Village Voice article: Holy Waters, by Erik Baard

The Downtown Boathouse, New York, 2003
runtime: 00:05:28

11:56 PM | TrackBack

December 8, 2005

Middle Passage Ceremony (Harbor Series #1)

Every June, African-Americans hold a Middle Passage ceremony to honor ancestors who died aboard slave ships bound for the New World.

This video is the first of a series about ritual and cultural uses of the New York waterfront.

Coney Island, New York, 2004
runtime: 00:03:07

"The Middle Passage was the brutal and horrific transportation of Africans across the Atlantic to the plantations of the Caribbean and Americas. Africans were captured and imprisoned in forts, or barracoons on the coast before enduring the inhumane conditions of the Middle Passage, or the 'way of death'. Packed like sardines below deck, in filthy conditions, at least one million Africans lost their lives on the crossing. Wherever possible the enslaved resisted. Some violently challenged their oppressors, others preferred death as a way of resisting the treatment forced upon them." - Breaking the Silence

LINKS:
Africans in America
HBO Films: The Middle Passage
Yemonja and The Yoruba religion
Holy Waters, by Erik Baard

4:37 PM | TrackBack