André Viking
Kekulé’s Dream
Kekulé’s Dream is the result of a series of trips to the Free State province of South Africa. On the travels, I photographed a group of shamanic healers called sangomas. The sangomas have a practice that addresses both physical and mental health, and which in a particular way seems to unite the areas of body, dream, knowledge and fiction. Their work is characterised by a certain holism. Rather than wanting to divide and delineate, they have a broader vision. They combine different approaches and fields in a way unknown the Western world – here, as we know, we tend to divide and delineate to achieve a feeling of control.
The dream world plays an essential role in the work of the sangomas. In their practice, the dream is a tangible remedy; it is considered a communication channel from the ancestors. It is up to the dreamer himself to interpret what specific message a dream conveys; and the messages can relate to anything, from information about how a ritual should be performed, to understanding a personal relationship.
While working on Kelulé’s Dream, it seemed clear that the medium of photography was an obvious form of expression: the way in which a series of images is a sequence of glimpses from different places and events, seems to reflect the same structure of dreams – short flashes from a course we no longer remember entirely.
That dreams can be a source of knowledge and insight, is a fact that also inspired title of the work: Kekulé was a German chemist, who in the 19th century is said to have achieved a ground-breaking understanding of the molecule benzene through his dreams. So, using the name of the scientist, who just like the sangomas worked in the tension field between fiction and knowledge, seemed obvious.
Finally, Kekulé’s Dream also has a critical layer: through the sangomas’ practice, it exemplifies an alternative to the health culture we cultivate in the Western world. Our healthcare system is based on medical treatment and has a tendency to ignore the impact on health of the psyche and the spirit – aspects that may not be publicly recognised because we have not examined them with the same seriousness.
One of the main purposes of the series is to show other cultures’ health practices. They seem occult or abstract to us, but, if taken more seriously, may gain recognition and even a scientific basis. In my visits to Free State, I have come to realise that our perception of what is objective truth may be challenged by what is not immediately comprehended.
André Viking (1989) is a Danish visual artist currently living and working in Copenhagen, Denmark. After graduating from Copenhagen Film & Photography School in 2012, Viking completed the General Studies Program at The International Center of Photography in New York. With the strong belief in photography’s subjective yet universal language, André Viking draws from ancient history and myths to explore convoluted relationships between meaning, truth and fiction.