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Anna Shimshak, The Religious

The project was completed over the course of three years, while I was both an undergraduate and then afterwards with the support of the Mortimer Hays Brandeis Traveling Fellowship. In the United States, I worked with a network of nuns and priests through the Catholic religious community in Milwaukee. In Europe and India, I lived intensively within convents and monasteries for weeks to months on end to make these photographs.

I was very open about what I was hoping to achieve. The relationship between Catholicism and art is substantial, as religious institutions were the source of considerable art patronage for centuries. However, the art was very doctrinally and institutionally focused, with the individual identity very rarely at the center. I was clear with my intentions to shift this paradigm and explore the person.

© GOHAR DASHTI, Stateless, 2015

“Dashti, an Iranian artist, stages scenes that blend humble detail with mythic implication. She grew up during the Iran-Iraq War; it prompted her family to move from southern Iran to the far north. Displacement was rampant. Her photos depict enigmatic tales rooted in her own experience.”