Sanctuary (Creating the North American Landscape) - Hardcover

Roma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801869552 ISBN 13: 9780801869556

Publisher: John Hopkins University Press, 2002

Synopsis

"Sanctuary refers to a place of worship and a state of mind--but it also refers to the most sacred part of a Christian church, the site where the altar is housed. Thomas Roma's photographs locate these most sacred parts of the community within the larger context of Brooklyn's landscape, charting the triumphant efforts of generations to leave their mark, to make their way through the world of mammon and man, seeking solace within the city but far beyond it. They also reveal a persistent, irresistible determination to express spirituality within the often harsh landscape of the city, giving glory to God's resplendent being even through the often makeshift architecture of the storefront and the movie theater."--Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

In Sanctuary, acclaimed photographer Thomas Roma offers a compelling sequence of 52 black-and-white images that document the varieties of religious experience in Brooklyn as seen in the borough's sacred architecture. Juxtaposing pictures of grand Gothic and Romanesque churches photographed at a distance from backyards and alleys with more intimate views of smaller places of worship housed in converted storefronts and dilapidated brownstones, Roma subtly calls attention to issues of history and class, revealing how successive waves of immigrants have shaped Brooklyn's urbanscape and how the African-American and Hispanic communities living there now have worked to make these neighborhoods, culturally and spiritually, their own.

"From shabby storefronts to soaring cathedrals, from Iglesia Pentecostal Apocalipsis to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic, this photo book documents the churches of Brooklyn. In gentle black-and-white, against the trash and light of the city, Roma's pictures capture all the ways immigrants and citizens, rich and poor, have made homes for God in the harsh urban landscape." -- Molly Marsh, Sojourners Magazine

About this title

Review

"The buildings we build are the embodiment of our aspirations and our achievements. Above all, they express our values. They describe how we co-exist with others and, in the case of churches, how we co-exist with God and aspire to transcendence. Making a place for God, whether on the walls of doomed buildings or within steepled churches, is the subject of Thomas Roma's seemingly effortless study. He shows us that the place for God is anywhere within the tangled web of commerce, desire, domesticity and failure invisibly woven into our urban landscape." -- Susan Kismaric, Curator of Photography, Museum of Modern Art

Review

"From shabby storefronts to soaring cathedrals, from Iglesia Pentecostal Apocalipsis to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic, this photo book documents the churches of Brooklyn. In gentle black-and-white, against the trash and light of the city, Roma's pictures capture all the ways immigrants and citizens, rich and poor have made homes for God in the harsh urban landscape." -- Molly Marsh, Sojourners

About this edition

• Publisher: John Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0801869552
• ISBN 13: 9780801869556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 96