Bill McDowell

Banner of Light: The Lily Dale Photographs

February 4-27, 1999

These photographs were made at Lily Dale, a spiritualist community in western New York. Established in 1879, Lily Dale continue to serve as a retreat to study Spiritualism, a religion based on the belief in the ability to communicate with spirits of the dead.

In this work I have used the Lily Dale environment as a foil in creating visual situations which related to my spiritual ambivalence. The result is a series of images which establishes an ambiguous relationship between subject and meaning, prompting the viewer to reflect on his/her connections to the material and spiritual worlds.