Customizable
SHRINE OF SHEIKH HUSSEIN 2, ETHIOPIA (2/12)
Référence :
Color photograph of a pilgrim at the shrine of Sheikh Hussein in Ethiopia, by Ferrante Ferranti. The city of Sheikh Hussein is named after the tomb of the 13th-century Somali saint of Merca called Sheikh Hussein, who introduced Islam to the Sidamo people living in the area at the time. This shrine is, in the eyes of Ethiopian Muslims, the holiest place in this country.
The artist explores the rites associated with the Elements – water, fire, air – in sanctuaries inhabited by the Spirit. Ablutions and immersions, gestures of purification or prayer of Hindu or Buddhist, Hebrew or Jain, Christian or Muslim faithful, embody matter, and help us to cross the mirrors of appearances to access the Saints of Holies.
Length : 0.39 in / 1 cm
Height : 35.43 in / 90 cm
Width : 23.62 in / 60 cm
Weigth : 2.2 lb / 1 kg
Artist : Ferrante Ferranti
Technique: Digital photography
Support: Pigment print on baryta paper (Canson Fine Art Baritta), laminated on Dibond
Dimensions: 90 x 60 cm
Number of copies: 12 signed and numbered prints
Year: 2008
Inspiration: A major Muslim pilgrimage site in the Horn of Africa, Sheikh Hussein’s shrine stands in an austere landscape, as if on the border between desert and sky. Dedicated to the Sufi saint Sheikh Hussein, it has been a space for gathering, prayer and oral transmission for centuries.
In this photograph, Ferrante Ferranti adopts a silent distance. He is not looking for the anecdote, but for the inner resonance of the place. The bodies, sometimes present, sometimes erased, become points of passage. The light passes through the architecture with restraint, revealing the texture of the walls, the patina of time, the density of the air.
The sanctuary then appears as a space inhabited by collective memory. Each stone seems to bear the traces of repeated gestures, whispered invocations, long walks of pilgrims. The photographer’s gaze lingers on this slow accumulation of the sacred, on this discreet dialogue between matter and fervour.
Through his contemplative approach, Ferranti transforms the site into a sensory experience. More than a religious place, the sanctuary becomes an inner territory — a threshold where silence, humanity and spirituality meet.
Ferrante Ferranti
FRANCE
Born January 13, 1960 in Algeria, of a Sardinian mother and a Sicilian father. He took his first photograph at the age of eighteen, a wave in Belle-Île-en-Mer. Passionate about Fernand Pouillon’s book, Les Pierres Sauvages, he began training as an architect in Toulouse, which he completed at Paris-UP6 in 1985 with a diploma in Theaters and scenography in the Baroque era. Traveling photographer, he has been involved for thirty years with Dominique Fernandez in a joint exploration of the Baroque and the different layers of civilizations, from Syria to Bolivia via Sicily and Saint Petersburg. His photographs dialogue with the texts of the writer, who defines him in the album Itinerrances (Actes Sud, 2013) as “the inventor of a language which links the sun to the ruins, in search of the meaning hidden in the forms” .
&url=https://www.oneofakind.fr/boutique/sheikh-hussein-2-ethiopia-shrine/?lang=en&media=https://www.oneofakind.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FERRANTE-FERRANTI_CASTEL-ARTES-2023_32-_DSC3632-1024x1024.jpg){kind=link}