Votive Offerings

Using a large format film camera and hand made traditional photographic prints, this series is an exploration of the contemporary nature of Votive Offerings.

Archaeologists regularly find buried objects which have been left as Votive Offerings to the Gods by ancient peoples. These offerings are frequently found in mud and under water.  They comprise valuable items offered for the favour. It is thought that food was also offered to the gods, but that does not survive.

If we consider the Clootie Wells in the highlands, asking the Fairies for help when someone is sick - and the trees studded with coins at the Fairy Glen; also left in payment to Fairies living there, for good luck; the practice of leaving Votive Offerings in the landscape has survived to the present day.

These examples give hope to the people leaving the offerings.  Hope that those people can’t get any other way, presumably.

We should all understand the spirituality of the experience we feel in nature and that should motivate us to save and protect it for generations to come, as well as for our own wellbeing.  Change can only happen when enough individual people make that change, themselves.