Ken Kavanagh

A visit to a Japanese religious festival off the coast of Kanagawa, welcoming summer and purifying the spirits of Shinto.

16/08/2023 Matsumoto Japan A summer festival or ‘Matsuri’ as it is called in Japanese moves rhythmically along a quite street in Matsumoto city. Leading the way is a Miko, a priestess who cleanses the path forward. She is followed by the bearers who on their shared shoulders carry the Mikoshi,…

Four young women dressed in traditional kimonos celebrate their official coming of age, which in Japan is age twenty. The scene is Kyoto’s Garden of Fine Arts, where classics from the western canon are reproduced in a modernist setting. The women poise for a photographer below, creating an uncanny harmony…

Their idealism is frozen in time and their successes are immortalized in their noble gestures and proud strides, their crimes and failures however are never whispered about.

Religion takes many shapes and forms, some are pageantry and others simply devotional and symbolic.

A cast of Senegal musicians and storytellers celebrates the Islamic festival of Tabaski in Dakar.

The Japanese concept of harmony is a strong social element typically involving conforming to a social group which in the case of Halloween is demonstrated…