In collaboration with Oscilloscope Laboratories, SAMSARA features the photography from award winning filmmakers RON FRICKE and MARK MAGIDSON.  This exhibition will run concurrently with the debut of their upcoming film, Samsara, opening in theaters on August 24, 2012.



Samsara is a Sanskrit word defined as “the ever turning wheel of life”.  These images act as a guided meditation on the cycle of birth, death and rebirth sculpted by the power of flow on a global level.  Illuminating the links between humanity and nature and the interconnection that runs through our lives, we are deeply moved by each moment captured in time.



Visiting a total of 25 countries in 5 years, the viewer is transported around the globe to catch a glimpse of both the exotic and the mundane.  This exploration leads us through majestic and untouched landscapes, futuristic cities, and varying cultures, seen through the prisms of daily life and ancient traditions.



The photographs included in this exhibition, taken by the filmmakers over the course of their travels, are extraordinary in their technique and composition.  This is clearly exemplified in the painterly approach of the desert terrains shot at the Namib Desert in Namibia and at Monument Valley, located at the Arizona-Utah state line.  Through the eye of the lens, the sweeping vistas reach towards the transcendental and a deep reverence for the soul of the land is internally experienced, eliciting a profound and emotional impact upon the observer.



One particular image that endures in the mind’s eye was taken at the Thiksey Monastery in Ladakh, India.  Here Fricke and Magidson encounter an intimate moment in which five monks are gathered together engaged in the ancient Buddhist tradition of mandala sand painting.  In the background are a group of children who are intently transfixed by the ritualistic execution in the design of the iconographic symbols and application of the colored sand.



This photograph, taken by Magidson, demonstrates the filmmakers’ masterful ability to unobtrusively immerse themselves in the inner sanctums of the monks’ meditative lives to capture this potent, familial-like moment amongst the children and their elders.  Inevitably, the mandala will be destroyed which serves as the metaphor for the impermanence of life - Samsara. 

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Presented at New York Open Center | 22 East 30th St. NY, NY 10016

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