The project explores the deep symbols of Christianity that live unnoticed in the collective memory and imagination of every bearer of Western culture — regardless of whether a person considers themselves a believer. These symbols shape our way of seeing the world, defining our ideas about suffering, sacrifice, guilt, hope, and salvation. While remaining invisible, they influence us from within, and in the external field, they can become an instrument of manipulation.
At the heart of the project is the question of faith itself: what does it mean to believe or not to believe today? Is it even possible to live 'outside' of faith when the cultural space is saturated with its symbols?
After the end of the postmodern era, when irony and deconstruction exhausted themselves, humanity is once again searching for meaning — and often turning to religious structures. At the same time, faith has always performed an existential function: it sustained people in dark times, helping them overcome suffering and despair.
The project asks: is faith capable of fulfilling this role today? Has it retained its power to sustain when collective ideas about truth, hope and salvation are in crisis? And if so, what is this faith: traditional, new, personal, communal, or perhaps something else entirely?
The tension between the individual and the collective also becomes an important nuance. Christianity has always held these two poles: the church as a community and the personal faith of each individual. In the modern world, this tension manifests itself in new forms — from radical individualisation to the growing influence of religious leaders in politics. This is another facet of the crisis: how to combine the freedom of individual search with the power of collective symbols?
The photographs explore symbols, signs and rituals, showing their presence not only in a religious context, but also in everyday life, physicality and social relations. This is a visual exploration of how the 'crisis of faith' manifests itself at the level of images — between tradition and modernity, between the visible and the hidden, between the need for meaning and the loss of trust.
----------------------------------------------------------------------