Exhibition Dates: October 21, 2023 - January 15, 2024

Curator: John Silvis

Exhibition Design: Christian Gonzalez Ho

Photographs and Catalog: Kieran Dodds

 

Heading Home: Glimpses of New Jerusalem features photographs, mural images, sound recordings, projections, and three-dimensional forms imbued with the hope of New Jerusalem. The photographs, wallpaper, and projections by Kieran Dodds offer mediated views of historic depictions of the heavenly city, encountered on a pilgrimage to significant church sites from Jerusalem to London. The multi-layered exhibition, created by Kieran Dodds, John Silvis, and Christian Gonzalez Ho, meditates on and offers a contemporary reading of the transformative reality of New Jerusalem and the rich tradition of Christian pilgrimage. It will be shown in two galleries.

 

Gallery One includes nine large, framed photographs and large format wallpapers, while Gallery Two immerses the viewer in a rich, multimedia landscape. The three largest photographic tableaux in Gallery One are divided into grids of nine or twelve framed panels, evocative of the historic mosaics employed by the Church to communicate the gospel message pictorially. Dodds used a tilt-shift lens to record the six landscape photographs mounted on the adjacent wall, which allowed him to selectively bring details into focus and blur out the surrounding space, adding an element of mystery and wonder to these iconic locations.

 

In Gallery Two, the octagonal structure joins biblical tabernacle and Italian Renaissance baptistry with the histories of photography and digital imagery. The resemblance to scaffolding alludes to the role of architecture as a framework for memory and meaning. The textures and forms of the environment are intended to resist easy consumption and prompt holy reflection. Projections of church dome ceilings at the crest of the octagon and on the surrounding gallery walls, along with soundscapes, immerse the viewer within the sensorial atmosphere of these sacred sites. Microphones in Gallery One transmit the live sound through a processor that re-renders them into a soundscape in Gallery Two, so that they can be heard in situ.

 

Roberta Ahmanson’s own work on New Jerusalem will be published in the forthcoming book, Heading Home.