This series was inspired by a comment by Beth to an earlier post which was, not particularly wittily, entitled Stations of the cross London rail journey. She picked up on my (embarrassingly flippant) reference to the Christian tradition of the Stations of the Cross and asked “Why not do a whole set of contemporary London “stations of the cross” during Holy Week?”
This left me in something of a dilemma. I loved the idea but am not a Christian and know little of the iconography of the Stations of the Cross nor the ritual and significance of Holy Week. I felt uncomfortable about attempting anything relating to something I knew nothing about.
However it occurred to me, aided by Beth’s wonderful account of teaching meditation practices, that they didn’t have to be an equivalent of or reference to anything in particular, they could be dealt out in pairs over the seven days (14 stations over one week) just as they are, working together or not, working with the viewer or not, but as a possible prompt for reflection.
Finally, since I had to cross London yesterday, by train, and accidentally started off by going in entirely the wrong direction, and had my phone with me, I managed in a totally unplanned way, but with increasing concentration and intention as the day went on, to take a picture of precisely 14 of the stations I passed through. Some are from the platform, some from the train while stationary and some from the train while moving.
They will appear in pairs in the order in which they were taken. They’re exactly as they came out of the phone apart from one which has been cropped to make an individual who appears in it (who I do not know and whose permission I had not asked) slightly less obviously identifiable; one has been straightened. I’m hoping to upload them in such a way that if you click on them you see a larger version since some contain text which would be difficult to read in a small frame.
Thank you, Beth, and I hope you find calm and joy as well as much to reflect upon amid the chaos!
