TOM JACOBI
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
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C.V.
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WORKS
WHERE GOD RESIDES
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
Where God Lives
Those who have experienced Varanasi on the Ganges know why it is Hinduism's most sacred location. Once you've escaped the push of the masses and chaotic traffic, you can see there down on the river things between life and death, things people on our latitude keep at a distance. Here they are normal and beautiful. This deep, and for some deeply religious feeling is captured in Tom Jacobi's picture of the Ghats, the steppes falling down to the river in the morning warmth.
In reportage style the photographer tells a timeless story. He has sought out places of intense spirituality on four continents, places where you can look up to the heavens and find your roots. Mythic holy sites of bygone and living sects. Here people have for millennia abandoned themselves to their inner impulses, searched for answers to the eternal questions. Here they converse with a higher power, no matter what name that power bears.
The cultural richness of humankind is reflected in the diversity of the world's religions. It has been a long road through time from the cults of ancient times to our occidental culture. To what extent religion has a role to play is today everyone's own decision. Religion lives on – in art, music, architecture. Though it is omnipresent, however, it has lost much over time. Refinding the mysticism of godly experience draws many to foreign places, where one experiences other religions that serve as the foundation for both community and culture.
Here we find an inner unity that many find missing in our own society. The energy that many procure to look for God and thus for oneself comes from the promise of becoming one with the earth and with mankind. Since the figure of the biped appeared on the twilight of prehistoric darkness, he has created a place for himself where he can be close to the gods and feel their power. To beg and to pray, to sacrifice and to honor, he has built monoliths and pyramids, domes and temples. Tom Jacobi has visited them, each site that bears the marks of uniqueness – each site where God lives.
