Aarti Hindu Lamp Ceremony, Pebble Beach, Brooklyn

You start with a palm leaf bowl. You decorate it with river-safe paint - orange, red, yellow. It’s about intention. Place the ghee butter wick, to be lit at the edge of the river. Listen to the conch, to Paulom’s drumming, to the gathering. Be still. Be together. Smell the incense, find your center in Aeilushi’s hands.

It’s about the river, reverence for water and flame. It’s about the slippery rocks, strangers' hands and yours helping. Oh, and your lamp. To be sailed with wishes for the year ahead. A wave, a lesson. Others guiding you, a lesson.

It’s about tradition. Centuries old in India, and the third annual in New York (this one on the low tide evening of August 1, 2015). A mirror flowing and reflecting.

                                                   Aeilushi Mistry, ceremony organizer

Aeilushi and the organizers provide the bowls and the paints and the music and the fire and the history. And something else ineffable, on that Pebble Beach shore with 8.4 million people and a mountain range of buildings beyond.

Because there you are, standing in the East River, waves lapping arms linking and you are all present and all the same and no one is a stranger.

Aeilushi explained this all to me a few weeks before. I smiled and nodded yes yes I see, as it faded to the din of New York City. It wasn’t until I was waist deep in that infamous water - iPhone having suffered its neglectful watery death in my pocket, camera slung (hopefully) somewhere haphazardly, because you can’t take pictures and offer a hand and revel in flame lit faces at the same time - that I understood. 

Next year, you should go.

More info:                                                                                                                                                         Aeilushi's Website

Aarti Lamp Ceremony Website

Haleakala - The House of the Sun

Trip to Haleakala summit - 10,023 feet above the sea.

Since there are no roads connecting the beachy southwestern Maui to the neighboring - really, just wave up the hill - upcountry, this journey began by driving nearly a quarter around the island out of the way. (There are a few rumors about this lack of road - Oprah not wanting people to build on her (also rumored) land, the state and/or local landowners trying to spare the still un- tourist-ized region the kind of development that comes with new roads, sheer inconvenience that sometimes comes with island life - ) So. After some rain, some horses, some lavender farms, some for sale raw honey, more rain, mist, half an hour of switchbacks, and my hypochondriac faux altitude sickness at a mere 6,000 feet, we emerged from the clouds.

Take that 40degrees and 60+ mph winds - you are no match for my beach towel turned super thermic skirt! (You are.) Many hid from the elements in the observation tower, watching a few seasoned hikers ascend the valley, and a handful of cars gather for the event. I tread carefully outside. When the pink started glaring I found them, ten or so photographers and sightseers, shivered behind a wind-breaking clump of lava. We laughed about frostbite, agreed that Haleakala sunsets are just as great as their more famous rises, and I tried to distract from my clicking with altitude-affected chatter. Some came to watch the horizon, others came with ridiculously expensive camera equipment to capture the horizon, (they came to Maui to take this picture), and no one could understand why I wanted to take pictures of them, instead of the absurdly beautiful melting sun. 

Folklore Project in Hawaii

WELL. What a diverse, alluring, lush, invigorating, arid, soothing, high, vibrant, urban, ancient, prickly, flowing, steadily changing and also resisting part of the world.

I've taken a shine to the DIY road/seaside memorials here - each distinct and reflective of the multifaceted culture of these islands. The first I noticed had over 20 tusked-jawbones nailed up a telephone pole. (Though, I didn't realize until finding a similar site on the other side of the island that this was indeed a memorial.) Others are.... softer. More leis and flowers in various stages of weathering, with bible passages and hand-written messages and cairn-like piles of coral. All these glimpses, to the backdrop of an incredible family vacation / reunion. (My mom lived here for a while as a girl.) This is the purpose of the visit, but, how can one not do a folklore something in Hawaii? 

So, I'm stealing shots out the window and holding up the group, and trying to put a little material culture photo collection together. Folklore ho! Let's wander off! Let's feel unexpectedly at home on the prairie. 

Full project found here.

Chloe Accardi, documenting hand-made memorial sites in Southern Maui. 

Identity Crisis. Rehoboth Beach, DE, March 2015

The best time to go on a commercial real estate shoot on the Delaware coast is during a rare and unexpected blizzard. 

Rehoboth Beach DE, March 7th 2015

Campfire Road, New York, January 4th 2015

Fog stands in for snow.

We don't live here anymore.

Formerly a children's hospital turned Soviet facility, this refuge for the homeless (or squatters den, depending on your angle), was repeatedly set ablaze in 2013. Only objects remain from the lives sheltered there. 

Weissensee, Berlin, 2014. 

The Other Tiger

The Other Tiger

 

Chloe Accardi, shooting a project in Beelitz-Heilstätten. October, 2014

Chloe Accardi is an east-coast based, often traveling, documentary artist and ethnographer. She holds an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina, and her current work involves place, abandoned / reclaimed spaces, and artist profiles. Prior to UNC, Chloe spent five years as the Literature Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts. Her other interests include narrative, street art, and expatriate communities. Chloe's photographs and illustrations have appeared in Meat for Tea, the NC Folklore Journal, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.   

Chloe Accardi 

 

About The Other Tiger: 

This site takes its name from a Jorge Luis Borges poem of the same title. Borges' tiger is a creature in its purest form - uncompromised as yet by art or language. Exploring the tension between the real and the represented, this poem mirrors the work, and echoes the challenges faced by the folklorist and documentarian. Borges' words act as inspiration - calling creative ethnographers to keep pursuing new means of presentation, engagement, and community collaboration. 

The Other Tiger