About

Project Jerusalem has been an ongoing video project for two years as part of my senior honors thesis for University of Michigan. It is an exploration of the implications of religious upbringing both on one’s sense of self identity and identity within a community. Part of this analysis involves talking to people of various religious backgrounds about their current state of faith as well as a trip to Jerusalem to explore the cradle of the three Abrahamic religions.  Below is part of the proposal for the project:

The goal of Project Jerusalem is to document my pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem in order to reconcile my religious upbringing with my current lack of faith. Following my personal experience growing up in a religious environment (specifically Catholic), I explore the processes of spiritual growth as they relate to the stages of human development (and evolving outlook on life). In order to get to the root of such a quest, I propose to document my travels “Home,” both literally and metaphorically. In one sense, home means Grand Blanc, Michigan, the city in which I grew up and was first introduced to religion by my parents. Concurrently, home means the Holy Land, the birthplace of the three world monotheistic faiths. The format of the piece is a personal essay in HD video,  fusing some of the traditional production aesthetics of the documentary genre with the experimental post-production of art cinema while drawing a parallel between these two homebound journeys. Each journey will focus on the significance of a “holy” place both historically and today, asking the following questions: “What is home?” and “Can one go home?”

As the piece will be experimentally unfolding in a rather organic fashion, any and all constructive criticism or insight would be greatly welcome and appreciated.

About Me

I am a senior student at the University of Michigan in the Screen Arts and Cultures Department in the school of Literature Science and the Arts. Throughout my years at U of M, I’ve experimented with different forms of media and art, but I always find myself turning back to video (and more specifically, experimental video). I find something fascinating and perhaps socially powerful in its immediacy. Though I have worked on many smaller video (and in some cases 16mm film) projects over the last few years, Project Jerusalem is the ultimate piece to me because it depends on a culmination of all my skills and passions. I started this project last year as part of my advanced video-making course and quickly found the need to make a larger piece. After showing Project Jerusalem, Chp 1 at the student showcase last year (Lightworks Film Festival), I received a great amount of feedback and general interest. In the spring, I applied to the honors program and was accepted mid-summer. Even before I knew I was in the program, I began to conduct research on religion and to watch experimental films that I felt approached similar topics in a manner that I would like to emulate. In regards to reading about religion, I highly recommend Karen Armstrong, whose novel The Spiral Staircase I found to be particularly poignant in its discussion of breaking away from the Catholic faith, yet still feeling entranced by it. If you asked me what type of genre my project falls into, I would probably say “experimental documentary” although I believe that it is more of a personal essay. Religion has always fascinated and tormented me on various levels throughout my life and I think I’ve always known that eventually I would need to sort out my thoughts through some form of art or expression. I always tell the story of my trip to Italy last year as a preface to this project. In 2008 I traveled to Paris and Italy with my boyfriend and visited the Vatican in Rome. We were fortunate enough to see the pope and experience a traditional Roman Catholic mass in Latin led by a Gregorian choir. I will never forget the moment that I sat in St. Peter’s Basilica and stared at the ornate, gold-plated arches and thought to myself, “This is what I’ve been trying to get away from for 6 years and yet here I sit, in the heart of it, marveling at it.” It was this moment that I knew my religious past was something that I needed to explore through my artwork.

Religion is such a touchy and personal topic in America, but I find that if you approach people openly and honestly, they are usually willing to have a respectful discussion. Though I don’t consider myself religious, I feel a strange connection to it. For me, understanding such a large idea doesn’t come from listening to a preacher, or reading a book, or listening to family members. It’s not enough for me to accept ideas and traditions because “that’s the way it’s always been.” That is why I am proposing to do what many people think is crazy. I am going to the Holy Land and talking to people there in a search for what my religious past and present truly mean for me. Do I expect to find all the answers? Absolutely not. I will, however, be able to say that I asked the questions I wanted to ask and I took the journey that not many people are fortunate enough to take. Whether or not I find solace in this journey, I will hopefully be able to connect with others and open a way for discussion of an issue that is so pervasive, yet not always questioned or discussed.