CLAUDETTE CHAMPBRUN GOUX

ARTIST STATEMENT

“Places of Worship”, Religious Vernacular Architecture

When I moved to the United States, the similarities and differences

between the two cultures particularly attracted me, and I began to photograph

scenes typical of the American way of life. What struck me the most

was the American religious fervor and how it was displayed. During my

regular “tour" of the city's neighborhoods, I noticed the diversity of

churches, temples, congregations of non-denominational cults. This multiplicity

of ways of worshipping has produced a kind of unusual religious

architecture very close to popular art, a sort of “religious folk-art”.

These small simple building devoted to prayer, are, in a way, sacred places

in the secular space of a city; but at the same time, these humble, fragile,

and ephemeral buildings, ordinary houses, transformed, improvised into

“houses of God", are what testify the best of the indecisiveness between

sacred and profane.

This series called "Places of Worship“, which I began in Houston, Texas

and continued in southern California documents the extraordinary diversity

of way of worshipping and the kind of unusual architecture it has

produced.

Through my photographs, I want to reveal this religious vernacular architecture

often unnoticed. Also, the multiplicity of makeshift buildings devoted to

prayer in inner city neighborhoods are to me a very touching and moving

expression of the American popular faith manifested in all its diversity and

freedom.

So far, I have chosen to capture the images of these churches from a

frontal point of view. This seems to me to fit with the simplicity and naivety

of the fragile houses, and through their formal juxtaposition, to emphasize

better their difference.

There are very few people on my images. They are shown through the

result of their works; how they shaped their “sacred” places over time.

These small churches are the story of people; they reflect their societal

needs. Their sacred space is a haven, a place of salvation often within

their poor neighborhoods. These unpretentious buildings are the open

hearts of marginalized small communities seeking economical changes

through faith and morality.

Claudette C Goux

Riverside, February 2011