Tag Archives: House of Worship (Oak Park IL) – St. Edmund's Church

Art Photography: HIEROTOPY. Created Sacred Space & Its Paradigms. (15 Photos).

FEATURE Image: The Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago, 10915 S. Lemont Road, Lemont IL. Author’s photograph, 7/2017 5.75 mb 

INTRODUCTION.

Hierotopy derives from two Ancient Greek words meaning “Sacred Space” and in a specifically broad sense.

It is a term developed at the start of the 21st century by Alexei Lidov (b. 1959), a Russian art historian who specializes in Byzantium.

Hierotopy is the study of the creation and frequent re-creation of sacred spaces whose inter-disciplinary application extends to a vast array of media (i.e., images, shrines, architectural spaces, pilgrimage, song, incense, ritual, natural forces, such as light and darkness) as well as spans the areas of art history, archeology, cultural anthropology (diversity in social practice), ethnology (groups and culture), and religious studies.

What hierotopy is not is the study of the phenomenology of the sacred. Rather, it is a look at projects that express the sacred and the relationship of the sacred and the mundane. It is a universal language posited in a nearly infinite number of forms marked by creative human activity and expression.

As such, icons and other sacred artifacts, for example, are not seen only as isolated objects but as part of any wider project to express a wide scope of communication of the sacred and mundane. It is these projects themselves – including both their conceptual and artistic aspects, as well as the historical developments leading to their formation – which are the primary focus of hierotopic study.

In regard to this post of photographs, as hierotopy is the study of the creative direction of projects coordinating artists and specialists in shaping a unified and comprehensive vision of the relation of the sacred and mundane, these photographs are their own hierotopy project. In seeking to capture others’ creative projects in the communication of the sacred and mundane along with those embodied human interactions with or among them, each photographic image is its own original hierotopic project.

Hierotopic projects are not limited to churches and sanctuaries but can be landscapes, architectural compounds, and greater entities such as urban settings. While edifices and other macro-art and architecture are hiertopic, so are individual and simple yet equally powerful components such as the use of light in church architecture as well as sacred (including revealed religious and other) ceremonies, feasts, and folk customs.

While my photographs as a hiertopic project can include original sacred spaces which are those that appear as the result of a theophany (Ancient Greek meaning “appearance of a deity”) or a representative thereof, it can extend to its re-creation elsewhere, such as, popularly, a Lourdes grotto or Hindu prayer pole. Other hierotopic projects can involve less tangible ideas but look to express a higher order so that by way of the hierotopic project a common bond or experience on or towards such higher planes is manifested between the created sacred space and its human participant or beholder, such as, to start, the prayer labyrinth.

El Santuario/Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Archdiocese of Chicago 1170 N. River Rd. Des Plaines, IL. 5/2018 7.89 mb 84% 
First Baptist Church, Kankakee County, IL 8/2017 6.63 mb
Moses, Mount Sinai, and the 10 Commandments Experience (The Shrine of Christ’s Passion) St. John, IN. 7/2017 4.83 mb
St. Edmund’s Church, 188 S. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, IL. 7/2015 7.84 mb 93%
Levere Temple, Sigma Alpha Epsilon National Headquarters, 1856 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, Il 10/2015. 30%.
The Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy, St. Stanislaus Kostka Church 1327 N. Noble Street, Chicago. 3/2013 1.58 mb
Corpus Christi Catholic Church, 4920 S. Martin Luther King Drive, Chicago. 10/2015 25%. After 120 years of service, the Bronzeville Catholic Church closed its doors for good in July 2021 as part of the archdiocesan consolidation plan,
Holy Innocents Church at 743 North Armour Street, Chicago. After 116 years of service, in 2021, the Chicago archdiocese combined Holy Innocents, St. Malachy + Precious Blood, and Santa Maria Addolorata to form the new parish, Blessed Maria Gabriella, 3/2013 1.74 mb
El Santuario/Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Archdiocese of Chicago 1170 N. River Rd. Des Plaines, IL. 5/2018 3.65 mb
El Santuario/Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Archdiocese of Chicago 1170 N. River Rd. Des Plaines, IL. 5/2018 5.02 mb
St. Edmund, Oak Park, IL. 9/2015 35%
St Bernadette. Cathédrale Saint-Cyr-et-Sainte-Julitte de Nevers, Nevers, France 1993 1.15 mb

(49 seconds). Police in Lourdes, France, interrogate 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous following the 6th apparition (Feb. 21, 1858) at the grotto. From The Song of Bernadette (1943) starring Jennifer Jones for which Jones won the Academy Award that year for Best Actress.

Grotto. 10/2022 7.86 mb 63%
Field of Honor 2021 Colonial Flag Foundation, June 30 – July 4, 2021 Seven Gables Park, Wheaton, IL The event’s website claims: “This stirring display of 2,000 flags will bring the community together in a patriotic tribute to honor our heroes.” 7/2021 7.82 mb