The notion that a whole city can exist on a spiritual fault line where the boundaries between the secular and spiritual worlds are almost indivisible can surely only occur in India. Varanasi, the city of Shiva and considered by Mark Twain to be older than time itself, claims to be such a city.

Pilgrimage is not only common in India, the Hindu faith itself requires its followers to make long journeys to temples, mountains, river confluences and religious gatherings. These journeys not only serve as acts of worship but also assist people on their spiritual pathways to Nirvana. Many of these end points of devotion and pilgrimage are considered to be tirthas, a term denoting an auspicious location where the dimensions between the temporal and the spiritual world are in constant collision, as if two inter-continental tectonic plates are incessantly rubbing up against each other. The whole city of Varanasi is considered such a location.

My photographs are my attempt to portray Varanasi as a tirtha where powerful yet benevolent Indian deities exist coterminously with millions of living people in a city who’s primary spiritual function is to provide a platform for deliverance into another world and another life. Deities patiently watch as people go about their lives, watching from walls, inside shops, from the very fabric of the city, as time slowly unfolds and humans age and eventually reach their own personal time for deliverance. The deities are portrayed as absolutes and the humans as liminal, temporary and fey figures in the midst of a fantastical world.