Honorable Mention / People: Portraiture
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Ahgori
Ahgori
This is an infamous Indian sect of followers of the god Shiva, who use human corpses in their rituals and ritually consume human flesh. Aghori, following the example of their god, meditate on funeral pyres, where they usually live.
They are said to be somewhere between life and death. They often live near funeral pyres, and use human bodies in their rituals. They perform puja sitting on a corpse and obtain "human oil" by burning the body over a fire. Because they occasionally practice necrophagy (eating human flesh), they are commonly called cannibals.
The philosophy behind the movement is Aghora, which literally means "not terrifying". We can understand it as an inner state of freedom from restrictions, fear and terror (ghora). Aghoris believe that the path to enlightenment is blocked by the Eight Traps of Reality: desire, anger, greed, delusion, jealousy, shame, disgust, and fear.
The technique used in the project is the wet collodion plate process, invented in 1851.