Serene Passage:  A Traveler’s Prayer in Madrid and Shanghai

Curatorial Statement 2015

In September, 2008, I embarked on a year of magical travel through Spain, Portugal, Brazil and China, with a brief side-trip to New York City. I reached each destination in peace and wandered within each landscape - camera in hand – in unwavering awe and wonder. All the while, as I gathered images during these passages, a still, inner voice kept me soulfully mindful of potential peril. I heard myself spontaneously whispering phrases from the Hebrew prayer Tefillat Ha’Derech: ‘’Lead us in peace… Grant us serene passage, until we arrive at our destination… Rescue us from the hand of every foe and ambush along the way… Bless the work of our hands…. Now angels have been appointed to watch over you in all of your journeys…Then Jacob went on his way an encountered angels of God...

I photographed both Madrid’s and Shanghai’s passages within twilight’s brief timeframe– as daylight waned and dusk descended. I captured Madrid’s Buen Retiro Park in natural light, while Shanghai’s Sightseeing Tunnel was photographed under artificial light, while the nearby Bund - as in Madrid’s Retiro - was captured beneath open skies.

A journey is a passage through time and light, as well as a passage through place. As a photographer – one who ‘draws with light’ - the concepts of ‘time’ and ‘light’ intrigue me, for they are, as one, relentlessly elusive and fluid. By discharging flash within a slow shutter speed, I was able to capture movement within time and ‘stretch’ light. This photographic technique allowed me to step inside time and light and explore my own as well as my fellow travellers’ passages through them.

Each of these essays tells its own story:

In Madrid, it was the end of a clear, warm day in February. The light was a flawless, rich azul, giving clarity to the textures and forms of the park’s lovely gardens, fountains, pathways, ponds and lakes. This resplendent natural light, together with Buen Retiro’s artfully designed nightlights, crafted a serene, inward-gazing mood. People exchanged thoughts in quiet intimacy as they wandered slowly through the park’s expansive spaces - as if longing to extend a tranquil, late afternoon promenade.

Shanghai’s Sightseeing Tunnel is an entranceway to a subterranean station- a starting point for a voyage beneath a river channel. Its corridors were crowded, and the mood was one of restless anticipation. Orange, red and green artificial lights illuminated the tangled landscape, quickening the tunnel’s fitful pulse. The sightseers avoided eye contact, and few paused to engage with the myriad of playful diversions as they made their way towards the underground trains.

Outside, the Bund was suffused with a strange, ethereal luminosity, created by extravagant lighting systems on its buildings as well as by lights radiating from towers and construction sites nearby. There were few travelers at this time of day. Those making their way home did not pause to linger; all shunned eye-contact.

As always, the artist within me is left with many questions. In my first photo-musing on Tefillat Ha’Derech - ‘Serene Passage: A Traveler’s Prayer At Ground Zero’, I contemplated the nature of good and evil, fate, time, memory and prayer. In this second essay, I continue to wonder: What is the essential nature of prayer? Did my fellow travelers seek comfort in prayer as they ventured beyond home? How can I capture ‘time’? How do qualities of light shape our passages through time and space… and through prayer? Am I like Jacob, encountering angels along the way?

Judith Leitner

September, 2014