Whistling in Church

Some time ago Oliver Merce started snooping around churches. Even monasteries. Which is strange, because this tattoo-loving, drum-playing, heavy metal-singing guy doesn’t look like the churchy type. He is clearly a non-conformist, so who knows what steered him down this traditional and rather solemn path. Mostly likely it was nostalgia for his childhood, when he was taken to church by the grown-ups and everything had an air of peace and equilibrium.

Maybe it was a desire for rediscovery that caused him to revisit the pews, to take a closer look at the icons. Maybe it’s about a deeper search springing from discontent. Or maybe it’s simply about curiosity. We don’t know. But we do know that he went back to church, he quietly listened to liturgies, he faithfully attended vespers, matins, and maybe even midnight service. He became a fixture in monasteries, a participant in open-air events with makeshift tents. He tried to see if the sacred spaces still meant something, by simply being there – to see if the teachings still moved him, whether Orthodox or Catholic.

And once he got there, something did stir inside him. He began to really see his surroundings, to observe the priests and parishioners with a third eye – a photographic one. Eventually he gave in, grabbed his camera, and started taking pictures. But his photography wasn’t weighed down by the sober earnestness of a religious follower wanting to convey the sense of being on holy ground – flickered with candlelight, filtered through stained glass, and fragrant with incense. Nor did he approach the work like a portrait photographer fascinated with the wrinkles and long beards of elderly monks painting icons.

Oliver Merce didn’t exactly behave. I’d say he dared, ever so discreetly, to whistle in church – shirking church protocol. He became an active participant rather than a passive receptacle. He became a reporter rather than remain a parishioner. He documented rather than frequented. He became a photographer rather than a spectator.

But the most interesting thing is that he imported something from street photography and transposed it onto a place of worship.

[…] When the street moves into the seemingly safe and secure space of a church, everything becomes extremely intimate, complex, and delicate. The church tends to shed the mundane – we leave at its threshold everything to do with the world, our flesh, secrecy, oddballs, traffic jams, and backslidden humanity in general. It provides an alternative space that is not muddled by the daily grind. It wants to welcome, if possible, the devout and obedient rule-followers.

[…] In his black-and-white pictures, Oliver Merce tries to make the unseen seen, to interpret a vast range of gray shades. He attempts to translate this hidden, abstract thing called faith – more discreet than a mustard seed – into visual language. Through detailed close-ups alternating with wide-angle scenes, he tries to piece together the mystery of the indecipherable.

In his enthusiasm he tried to plunder the depths by bringing deep and long-awaited hopes to light, but he settled for what was on the surface. He only had the visible to work with. In the end, his effort was innocent, utopic, and unoffensive. Because even the most performant of cameras and even the most observant of eyes cannot penetrate the folds of the human soul to discern, like on a microscope’s slide, what kind of microbes are swirling about in there.

No matter how abstract it sounds, God is love and only in love can we seek the meaning of faith. In other words, we cover “the confident assurance” of things hoped for with an even more metaphysical term: love. In this sense, Oliver Merce’s attempt to map out the indescribable realm of faith is a beautiful declaration of love for people and for a hidden God – who, despite appearances, never ceases to love us.

The photographs in this book are nothing more than a humble response to the unstoppable love of the Father, who picks up the hems of his robes and runs out to meet the prodigal on his way home. His love conquers any shame, any despair, any act of betrayal. At the smallest sign of a seeker seeking faith, love responds instantly and promptly, it steps immediately forward with open arms.

“Faith,” says Andre Frossard, “is a reciprocal magnetic phenomenon between God, whose discretion draws one beyond oneself, and the human soul, whose generous inclination to believe in love despite all obstacles irresistibly attracts one to divine mercy.”

Unsolicited and of his own will, Oliver Merce surrenders to this magnetism from Above, which awaits a response from below. He is the victim of a pregnant pause. Love always demands a response, no matter what it may be – acceptance or rejection. The photos at hand, as with any photographs, represent an act of self-exposure. Everyone knows that we don’t photograph what we see, but what we are. The author of these photos is clearly a seeker on a path. What will he find at the end? God knows. God really does know.

essay by Voicu Bojan