Tamara Reynolds
Project Competition
Project Title: Nashville’s Soul: Photographs of the Sacred
Medium:  Black & White Photography

 Artist Statement:

According to the US Census, the number of Nashville-Davidson County residents born outside of the United States has tripled between 1990 and 2000. By year 2000, 7% of the Nashville population was foreign born.  
 
In the summer of 2003, the Final Report of the IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT prepared under contract for Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, TN was completed. It found in one of its research components immigrants and refugees experiencing “ a range of adverse interpersonal interactions with native residents of Nashville.”  

The theme of the photographic project is spirituality and the similarities shared within the diverse religious practices among Nashville’s growing population.  The objective is to celebrate our city’s growing cultural diversity while bringing awareness to the commonality of our search for belonging, connection, and peace.  I believe in our uniqueness we are bound together by our desires of the soul.

During a period of personal deconstruction, I found a need for a spiritual redefinition. In the process I’ve learned to see another meaning in my everyday surroundings, the importance in identifying rather than comparing with people, how fear is ignorance, courage is humility, and love is service.  I was compelled to explore how we all aspire to a deeper awareness and how alike we all are in that search.  Throughout my life I’ve embraced cultural diversity and relish the everyday life of other cities, but I virtually ignored what was available to me at home. The Nashville of my youth was a homogeneous culture. Even though I am nostalgic for the simpler pace of the past, and reluctant to the change, I am exhilarated to see my hometown grow into a multicultural city with the growing immigrant population.  I began the project with the idea of learning, sharing, and ultimately embracing our new Nashville.

 
The process of this project is a continuation of the spiritual clarification and is as important to me as the final images. I chose to photograph without lighting equipment or a tripod so that I would be unencumbered and open to the experience of the moment. The one medium format film camera I used forced me to bow my head when looking in the viewfinder. When I approached my subjects I felt more reverent and humble. The slower mechanical workings of the older camera made photographing more thoughtful and purposeful. I chose black & white film medium to put the focus on the essence of the moment rather than literal documentation.
 
The exhibit will consist of 23 prints matted and framed to 32x32 inches; 5 prints matted and framed to 50x50 inches. It will be shown at the Metro Nashville Parthenon East Gallery from July 25th – Oct. 31, 2009.