Keith Barker
Associate Professor
Keith A. Barker,
M.F.A. Savannah College of Art and Design 2000
B.A. Asbury College 1991
What is it that makes a particular space sacred? A visit to the cathedrals and churches of our nation or the world might provide a partial list: impressive, deliberate architectural structures, with a healthy measure of stunningly beautiful visual art. These are indeed important and even divinely prescribed ingredients for worship spaces.
However, these important ingredients alone might fall short of making a particular space sacred. Recently, while pushing my young daughter in her swing, I thought about how present the Almighty was, even at that very moment, and how redeeming and significant it was to interact with her and Him in that way at that time in that space. It was beautiful.
In my own work, there persists an interest and sensitivity to the passage of time, and photography’s role in seemingly stopping time in some cases and showing time in others. It did not seem at first that this project would address that topic. However, I have learned to see a new facet of time. The timeless nature of what makes these spaces sacred and the encounters that took place in them truly cannot be documented in a photograph.
While visiting the Abbey of Gethsemani, a trappist monastery south of Louisville, it was expressed to me that the monks will sing and pray to God in communal devotion until the end of time. Experiencing the grounds and worship space myself, however, disclosed to me the historical view of that statement—they already have been doing this consistently for a long time! I trust these photographs will speak of the past as well as the future, celebrating and encouraging sacred encounters with the One who “entered into heaven itself.”