The image, the viewer and the flow of meanings
Talk and short films
An image is never merely that which we see.The role played by images is absolutely decisive for a religion’s identity. Each religion has occupied itself in one way or another with the functions a picture has for religious experience and religion. And even when every single image is banned, this important aspect comes to the fore. And although the films selected – each relating to one of the religions thematised here – are obviously not paradigmatic, they nevertheless show individual perspectives on religion, religiosity and its pictorial traditions.
7 p.m.
Opening: Dr. Jörg Herrmann, theologian and publicist, Hamburg
Talk: Angela Haardt, curator for audio-visual art, Berlin
Short films
Physiologus
D: Daniel Kutschinski / Wolf Seigel,Germany 1993, 19 min.
Even in the modern age, the ‘Physiologus’ remained a popular collection of allegories describing the characteristics of Jesus Christ.
Ki – Breathing
D: Toshio Matsumoto,Japan 1980, 29 min., no dialogue
An attempt to render visible the inner experience of Zen.
Purim
D: Deborah Phillips,Germany 1996, 5 min., no dialogue
The celebration held for Queen Esther to commemorate her saving the Jewish people from annihilation in the Persian Empire.
Kramasha
D: Amit Dutta,India 2006, 22 min., Hindi with English subtitles
The memory of childhood is filled with symbolic imagery.