By: Telile Fikru Badecha on September 12, 2014
Growing up in a church context where religious visuals are not part of the tradition, both our last week’s reading on visual faith by William Dyrness and this week’s reading by David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice have stretched my perception about visuals in the Christians worship. After…
By: Julie Dodge on September 12, 2014
Art is a reflection of culture. Art is demonstrated in many mediums: narrative (story), music, poetry, visual, and performance. And what is culture? “Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by…
By: Richard Volzke on September 12, 2014
Stevens said, “Humans do not live in a place but in the description of one.”[1] This quote has caused me to stop and reflect on my own worldview. At one time it seemed that my surroundings were defined by some preset order of things, but this is not the case. The environment does not define…
By: Dawnel Volzke on September 12, 2014
Before reading Pink’s book, Doing Visual Ethnography, it helped me to understand first what ethnography is about. Knowing that it is the systematic study of people and cultures helped to provide me with a better context in order to understand the concepts that Pink covered. There are entire fields of study given towards understanding social…
By: Brian Yost on September 12, 2014
When I ordered the book Doing Visual Ethnography by Sarah Pink, I was not sure what to expect. I had never heard the term “visual ethnography”, so I began to search for a good working definition. I discovered that there are schools, like Leiden University that offer specialties in Visual Ethnography. Apparently it is something…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on September 11, 2014
“Visual images are powerful creations indeed. For into the depths of one soul does the image fall, impacting the very essence of the man.” From those images that offer “the poignant evocation”[1] of an experience to those that train us in transcendences-ness, all images are powerful causing emotions that lead us to passion, love, and…
By: Ashley Goad on September 11, 2014
As I told you last week, I grew up as a part of the Quaker faith at Springfield Friends Meeting in High Point, North Carolina. My mom was a member there. So was her mother and father. So were their mothers and fathers. So were their mothers and fathers. And so were their mothers and…
By: Liz Linssen on September 11, 2014
The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice This past year, my father asked me to give him “a picture of God.” As someone who hasn’t shadowed the door of a church for around three decades, I was pleasantly surprised to hear his request. However, I was more surprised that he assumed I…
By: Deve Persad on September 11, 2014
I ordered new glasses. It’s not really news worthy, as the lens prescription hasn’t changed and the new frames will likely have little difference from the old ones. By my calculations, this is the fifteenth time that I’ve ordered a new pair of glasses. I’ve averaged a new pair every two years for the last…
By: John Woodward on September 11, 2014
Last spring, I traveled to Porcupine, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation to work with my Lakota friends. On this trip, I had the opportunity to visit a Catholic school where I wandered the halls till I came across a display case that held several icons of Jesus and Mary. Enjoying sacred art, I…
By: Mary Pandiani on September 10, 2014
Two thoughts come to mind in reading Pink’s book, Doing Visual Ethnography: First, her work parallels the movement of the modern world to the post-modern world by articulating the argument that anthropologists have had over the years of how to make the best observation of culture: scientific-realist vs. reflexive. In an exploratory manner, she gently opens…
By: Nick Martineau on September 10, 2014
A good picture can tell a story but according to Sarah Pink so can a bad picture. It’s not about the picture that is taken but the approach to representing knowledge. I found Doing Visual Ethnography by Sarah Pink to be way more interesting then I initially thought. I love different cultures so the study…
By: Dave Young on September 10, 2014
I think I did visual ethnography—or at least a homespun version of it—but I just didn’t know it. When I was a teenager I spent four summers with a group called Teen Missions International (TMI). TMI sends teams of teenagers around the world on mission projects; some of those projects are primarily construction while others are…
By: Phillip Struckmeyer on September 10, 2014
Painfully Reading about Visual Ethnography Before reading Sarah Pink’s book, Doing Visual Ethnography, I would have to admit, I had never heard specifically of ethnography. Anthropology, yes. Cultural studies, yes. Sociology, yes. But ethnography, not so much. So first, I found this book to be helpful in opening my eyes to a new field, or…
By: Jon Spellman on September 10, 2014
I’m reflecting on the arrival of my first batch of books for this semester. That happy little brown box with the smiley symbol emblazoned across the front always brings me joy when it arrives and in this case, the joy was a little more pronounced than usual. It was also accompanied by another sensation I…
By: Miriam Mendez on September 7, 2014
I can remember as a child being told to “pay attention.” I don’t know about the rest of you but for most children it was not the easiest thing to do. And now, as an adult, I still believe that it is not the easiest thing to do. I would offer that paying attention or…
By: Carol McLaughlin on September 5, 2014
As I write I can lift my head slightly, glance over the top of my laptop to see before me images of significance, invitation, and embrace. Over time they have contributed and added to my faith. As I began to read Visual Faith: Art, Theology and Worship in Dialogue by William A. Dyrness I stopped…
By: dminlgp on September 5, 2014
It seemed more enticing to think through Dryness’ book Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue Engaging Culture with the help of a heading from a proverb in Nigeria’ Chinua Achebe’s famous novel “Things Fall Apart”. When visual art is expressed in all its human forms, people are presented with an opportunity for…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on September 5, 2014
Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue Engaging Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue Engaging Recently I attended a leadership training conference where I watched someone do a side artwork during the preaching of the word ( see the picture above). This was my first cross-cultural experience of this type, and I…
By: rhbaker275 on September 5, 2014
Several years ago I read The Rise of the Image, The Fall of the Word by Mitchell Stephens. I was at the time becoming aware of the toxic reality around me; the erosion of my value system and the unexplainable disconnect that seemed to be taking place between the church/faith I loved and…
