The Flowering Cross
Holy Week in an Andean Village
Exhibition of Photography with Commentary
March 30 - April 24, 2009 on Weekdays from 9 - 4
In 2008, noted New Haven art photographer Robert Lisak traveled to Peru during Holy Week with Professor Jaime Lara of Yale to document a cultural treasure in a remote Andean village. The resulting exhibition of Mr. Lisak’s photographs accompanied by commentary in English and Spanish by Prof. Lara will be on display at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven from March 30 – April 24 (open weekdays 9-4). There will be a reception on Tuesday, March 31 at the Institute (409 Prospect St.) from 4:30 – 6.
The exhibition focuses on the colonial Inca town of Andahuaylillas, near Cuzco. The extraordinary 17th century church at the center of the town houses remarkable murals, oil paintings, gilded sculptures and two colonial pipe organs. In Andahuaylillas, Holy Week is celebrated with rituals that combine Quechua hymnody with late medieval and Baroque liturgical practices in a pure form rarely seen in the last fifty or more years. The photographer and the author had unprecedented access to events and to parts of the building not open to the public, and the exhibition offers a unique glimpse into early evangelical conversion practices and their continued vitality in the context of the rich bilingual contemporary Andean culture.
The exhibition, entitled The Flowering Cross: Holy Week in an Andean Village, is presented by Yale Institute of Sacred Music with support from Yale Divinity School. Both the exhibition and the reception are free and open to the public.
For more information, call 203-432-5180.