Pathway to Silence

Pathway to Silence presents a pilgrimage to wild sanctuaries, unlabelled landscapes which hold a deep memory. No maps to hand, we are invited to stand still and linger in true solitude allowing the scope of our attention to expand. This is a photographic pursuit of “the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts”¹. 

A materialistic vision of nature, reduced to mere resources which can be exploited and degraded, has resulted in the destruction of much natural beauty and a separation from nature. Humankind is the only specie working so hard at our own destruction. Fortunately, the outstanding intelligence and radiance of the natural world offer us the ability to heal ourselves from this collective elemental homesickness and start the return journey. Echoing the words of Henry David Thoreau: “We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature everyday”.

Wingfield works from vantage points which emphasize the vastness and the magnitude of landscape. Brilliant skies radiate above. There is an ethereal mystery that unites each spectacle, whether an impenetrable bouldering volcanic plateau or a volatile wind swept sand dune. 

Despite the mood of heavy silence and the solitude, Wingfield’s photographs exude an overt energy. We are reminded that the universe is not dead matter but very much alive. It is in constant gestation with each grain of sand on a journey. As we recognise our insignificance in these evolving monuments of nature, Pathway to Silence is an opportunity to slow down and to come into rhythm with the universe with a watchful reverence. 

1 Paul Goodman, Speaking and Language