Every last thursday, a festival of street art in NE Portland.
]]>Every last thursday, a festival of street art in NE Portland.
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The military bunkers of Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA.
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More of the Oregon Coast. Trying to translate an experience of landscape, which is always about scale and proportion. Or should be. When visiting landscapes, we use binoculars and cameras to bring things close. By multiplying vision (spatial montage) maybe an approximation of distance can return.
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April 30th was the lowest tide of the year on the Oregon coast. An alien landscape made more alien by exposed sea creatures. A great time to explore and picnic.
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Order yours from Randy at the Birdhouse Factory PO Box 649 Garibaldi, OR 97118.
A spontaneous weekend drive to the coast gave me what I needed. A sense of proportion.
Audio: Mystified - Rain 2
LINKS:
Living Wilderness - Haystack Rock, Oregon Coast (Picture Index)
Haystack Rock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pierre Wayser's videodiaries capture the deep magic of travel, what can never be relayed in a narrative after the fact. No story to tell. Just the fragmented experience itself, leaving vast empty spaces in its wake. I am humbled.
His videos can be found at cinematicfilm experimental film video art.
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Inspired by Erik Nelson's Random Northwest. Also check out NYC 2 Days. Carry camera everywhere on travels. Shoot bits. Edit loosley, intuitively and somewhat chronologically. The result is sort of useless, but much closer to experience and memory. Like what goes on in the head before sleep.
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
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
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
LINKS:
Africans in America
HBO Films: The Middle Passage
Yemonja and The Yoruba religion
Holy Waters, by Erik Baard
In four parts.