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project description End of the World (Cape Point), 2004

Cape Point, at the southern tip of South Africa, was once believed to be the place where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. It is one of those places that reminds us of our transience. End of the World (Cape Point) is a visual echo of that exchange. At Cape Point, I sensed, in a moment of intense spiritual awareness, the meeting between mortality and immortality.

The end of the world, like a thief in the night, can come at any moment. It cannot be owned or known yet, paradoxically, it is solid, ever-present, for the end is included in ‘now and forever’. There can be no doubt that the end of anything has an attraction and beauty of its own; a calm inevitability, or the promise of renewal.

where-we-r (detail)
Geneva, Switzerland
Lambda print
95 x 125 cm
2005

This image shows me lying prostrate in front of the Reformer’s Monument in Geneva. Built in 1909 to commemorate Geneva’s role in the Protestant Reformation, the wall features the four great figures of the movement: Guillaume Farel, one of the first to preach the Reformation in Geneva; John Calvin, the “pope” of the reformers; Théodore de Bèze, first rector of the Academy and John Knox, founder of Presbyterianism in Scotland.

Located at the crossroads of important communication roads linking the Mediterranean Sea to the North of Europe, Geneva was an important place of exchange, ideas and trade. My ritualistic prostration, reminiscent of Muslim worship, seems to be at odds with Presbyterian reserve. But is it, and should it be? The body’s form can only allude to what lies in the heart. The image evokes a private experience of praise and humility that defies categories, and indicates a devotion that is more than skin deep.