ANOTHER SPACE & TIME – STORY

As the World becomes ever more homogenised by the tentacles of globalisation, a thirst to seek out knowledge that has not yet been diluted by the corporations of the West has begun to emerge. I spent a month in the Peruvian jungle amongst a group of Westerners from around the Globe, who are seeking answers to their ailments that Western medicine failed to give them.

THIS IS WHAT I FOUND.

ANOTHER SPACE & TIME

Another Space & Time, a photographic and audio project by Robin Mellor that searches for the meaning of life in the great American deserts.

The American desert is a microcosm of American counter-culture. I wanted to know what brought these rich, colourful characters to gather here, lit up against the sparse, run down backdrop.

I knew for a question as big as the meaning of life I had to go to a place where people weren’t bombarded by the influences of modern society, full of personalities big enough to form their own attitudes, rather than regurgitate the opinions of others.

The physical space of the desert fosters a quiet, mental clarity; where senses that had been over-stimulated by the city can settle smoothly to a different rhythm; where rushed, scattered thoughts give way to a slower, deeper way of thinking.

These people have grown up in arguably the most developed nation on Earth. They are a product of a capitalist Western society pushed to it very limits. Some have left the modern world behind by choice, and some by necessity. But they have all found something that makes much more sense to them than their former lives.

The people I met had been afforded a life without the continuous bombardment of modern society’s ideas and ideals. A life without being told what to think and what to buy, in a country built on consumerism and control allowed them to draw their own conclusions, with the pursuit of money and success taking a back seat to community and self-fulfilment.

Being in the desert at night, you cannot fail to be struck with awe. The brightly illuminated blanket of stars sets the perfect stage for philosophical thoughts on our place in the universe – it is hard to ignore questions of meaning and purpose when confronted with nature’s greatest and most unexplained wonders.

The connection of these communities to nature is central to their day to day lives. It’s a rare thing today to live in a place that isn’t constructed or controlled by humankind; they are able to live in harmony with this wild landscape, rather than trying to tame it.