Spiritual Paths

Struggling to carry push their bicycle on the steep incline, two Hmong girls climb up a mountain to the wooden house where they and their families will spend the entire day kneeling on wooden floors, listening to the voice of their prophet. The heavy jungle weighs around them, seemingly swallowing the path as it recedes into the distance. Their parents are already inside the building, preparing to begin worship—their motorbikes parked in the distant foliage. The girls appear in bright colors
In this Northern Thai village, a small group of families would rise at early hours every morning to worship, pour over Biblical passages, and listen to the words of a man whose sermon was said to be directed by an angel. They had done this despite being met by derision, scorn, and ostracization from their neighbors, who had watched with confusion and disapproval as the Reformers began a strict vegan diet, quit their jobs, sold their farmland, and eschewed themselves of earthly belongings in order to prepare for Christ’s return, which they believed would happen within the next few years.
While outsiders looked upon these practices as bizarre, they described their new lifestyle as something which gave them closer access to divinity than they’d ever had before. The prophet and the rituals to which his followers adhered allowed his followers to reframe the world around them through experienced immanence and “enchantment” (Gell 1994)—the everyday world became more than “ordinary”—it became sublime. The rituals they upheld, such as abstaining from meat or dairy, allowed them to see God in the mundane choices they made, even in something as seemingly ordinary as meal selection. The time they spent kneeling and studying the Bible also allowed them to transform themselves closer to Christ. Their lives became rewritten through transcendent frameworks—the persecution they endured for choosing this lifestyle was experienced as a testament to the truth of their beliefs.
This photograph embodies the convergence of divine and sublim—the scene is expanded into a “praxis capable of making the other present” (Fabian 1990). The girls are members of a religion which separates them from the rest of the village, who view them as outsiders—and the Reformers proudly embrace that role. They are living among the “fallen” world, but actively choosing to follow rituals which they believe elevate them closer to a heavenly state, just as the two girls dressed in bright colors are in the depths of the jungle, but visually separate from the dark, dense maze of foliage. They remain untouched by the greenery—they see their path set out clearly ahead of them and maintain their childlike playfulness, reminiscent of photographer Helen Levitt’s whimsical and witty portraits of children playing games amongst the concrete jungle of New York City. There is a sense of “enchantment” to the photograph— the brightly dressed girls oblivious to the visual and social turmoil around them, but certain of the path upon which they tread.

Gell, A. (1994). ‘The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology’. In
Coote. J. (Ed.) Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fabian, Johannes. “Presence and Representation: The Other and Anthropological Writing.”
Critical Inquiry 16, no. 4 (1990): 753-72.

Commentary on Rachel Tanur's Works: Drag Queen 1

The photograph Drag Queen 1 is one of Rachel’s more playful works, documenting the confident bravado of a Drag Queen striking a pose for the camera. This photograph engages the viewer, eliciting a humorous response—a subject who is clearly confident with how he/she defies social norms. Reminiscent of Diane Arbus’s careful typology of “freaks” and “outsiders,” Rachel’s photograph differs from Arbus’s work by allowing the subject to take the power and steal the show. Dressed in only a towel, stockings, and jewelry, this drag queen confidently plants his/her high heels upon the tires of a truck, whose driver can’t help but chuckle and grin at the display. The drag queen’s eyes are masked behind sunglasses, and a silver purse hangs casually at her elbow. The unexpected scene is perhaps what makes this photograph both striking and endearing— the tongue-in-cheek result of a drag queen walking the streets of a city with a towel wrapped around his/her head, flaunting a confidence and flair of individual expression. Dressed in pure white and peering coyly over one shoulder, the sunglasses obscure us from reading his/her face completely. This adds to the intrigue, causing us to further invest in the unfinished story being told by this character, cleverly framed through Rachel’s composition and by the boxy, off-white truck filling the frame. The success of this photograph lies in the unexpected nature of both the setting and the subject-- the individual is a person “out of place” (Douglas 1966). Society is carefully built upon and regulated by norms of conduct, and when groups adhere to these codes they form bonds of solidarity and culture (Davis 1949). By breaking social norms of gender through cross-dressing, in addition to breaking social norms of public dress and attire, this drag queen has burst out of social constraints and created a type of liminality in which to exist and draw the attention of others. Like other people “out of place” in society—the type of people who may have found themselves behind Diane Arbus’s camera—this individual stands out as someone who “doesn’t belong.” This is due to breakage of the careful webs of social norms that regulate society. However, even more striking than the subject is the confidence and boldness with which he/she bursts free from those social norms. While documentary in nature, this photograph reads as though it is one of Richard Avedon’s famously unexpected fashion portraits. Instead of Avedon posing a model in front of elephants in an effort to sell gowns, this is a drag queen proudly dressed in a towel, posing in front of an ordinary truck; perhaps Rachel saw it as a way to sell the viewer on the idea that there is beauty in nonconformity. While societies may create rules and norms, there will always be diversity, there will always be a person “out of place” who refuses to adhere to those regulations. Though a society’s culture plays a significant role, human identity is largely shaped by human agency and expression, and individuals who aren’t afraid to break boundaries are able to navigate life in an “increasingly individualistic, complex, and chaotic world” (Côté 1996). Douglas, Mary. Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge, 2003. Davis, Kingsley. "Human society." (1949). Côté, James E. "Sociological perspectives on identity formation: The culture–identity link and identity capital." Journal of adolescence 19, no. 5 (1996): 417-428.