Description
Crucifixion – The Ascension
Conceptual photographic research
February 2023 | Variable dimensions
From space you could not see the borders, just this beautiful fragile blue and white sphere turning in infinite black void, and before it floated the Christ crucified without cross, arms spread nailed to nothing but the cosmos itself, and his body embraced the Earth or carried it or was rejected by it impossible to know, ambiguity intended because our relationship with him had always been ambiguous, we venerated him and ignored him simultaneously, we proclaimed his message and did the opposite, we built cathedrals in his honor and massacred millions in his name, and now in February twenty twenty-three he floated there in the void silent witness to what we were doing to the planet he had supposedly saved two thousand years ago.
The astronaut who had taken this impossible photograph – because it was obviously a photograph taken from the International Space Station or perhaps from the Moon – this astronaut had captured the ultimate truth of our age, the cosmic Christ crucified not on a hill near Jerusalem but on the totality of the terrestrial globe, sacrifice that concerned no longer just the Jews or the Christians but the entire human species and all the living beings that populated this planet, whales redwoods elephants bees all crucified with him on our collective madness, mass extinction underway sixth of geological history caused this time not by an asteroid or volcanoes but by a single species that had decided to consume its own foundations.
February twenty twenty-three, sixty years old, twenty and a half years in France, and exactly one year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine the war continued, Bakhmut Mariupol Kherson names of Ukrainian cities transformed into fields of ruins, and while we killed each other the climate was deregulating exponentially, average temperature increasing glaciers melting sea levels rising species disappearing, reports from the IPCC increasingly alarming increasingly ignored by governments that preferred to protect short-term economic growth rather than long-term survival, and Christ floated before this ongoing disaster arms spread in eternal crucifixion position.
Crucifixion – The Ascension, paradoxical title that fused death and resurrection, descent into hell and ascent to heaven, and perhaps that was exactly it, perhaps ascension could only happen through total crucifixion, that we had to lose everything before gaining everything, die completely before rebirth, and humanity in February twenty twenty-three was crucifying itself, destroying its own conditions of existence, sawing the branch it sat on, and perhaps this self-destruction was necessary, perhaps we had to hit absolute bottom before rebounding, if we rebounded at all, because nothing guaranteed resurrection, many species had gone extinct without ever returning, dinosaurs mammoths dodos, why would humans be different.
The Earth behind him showed Europe and Africa, continents that had seen the birth of Christianity and Islam, cradle of the three Abrahamic religions that all believed in a single God creator of heaven and earth, and all three had failed to teach us respect for creation, we had taken Genesis literally « dominate the earth subdue it » and we had dominated it subdued it exploited it emptied it until it could take no more, and now it was taking revenge slowly inexorably, heat waves droughts floods hurricanes, furious Gaia shaking off its human fleas, and Christ crucified before her seemed to ask why, why did you do this, I gave you a paradise and you transformed it into hell.
The black cosmic void around the scene reminded us of our absolute cosmic solitude, no other habitable world within reach, we were stuck on this unique precious irreplaceable planet, and if we destroyed it we had nowhere to go, fantasies of Martian colonization were ridiculous, Mars was a frozen desert with no breathable atmosphere, it would take centuries to terraform it if it were even possible, and meanwhile Earth was dying, our only home ever, only spacecraft capable of keeping us alive in the hostile vastness of the cosmos, and we were actively sabotaging it, holes in the hull pollution everywhere survival systems failing, and captain Christ crucified could do nothing, we had taken the controls and were driving straight toward the iceberg.
The image reversed the usual perspective, usually crucifixion was represented viewed from earth with sky above, but here it was the opposite, seen from space with earth in the background, and this reversal changed everything, showed that Christ’s sacrifice concerned not just the redemption of human souls but the entire planet, all ecosystems all climates all forms of life, cosmic martyrdom for cosmic salvation that never came, two thousand years of waiting and the situation got worse instead of better, humanity more violent more destructive more suicidal than ever despite or because of the technology that gave us divine powers without divine wisdom to use them correctly.
His crown of thorns invisible in the image but present in our collective memory spoke of this suffering we inflicted, thorns of climate change of pollution of deforestation of ocean acidification, slow torture we inflicted on the biosphere, and his nailed hands prevented him from intervening, or perhaps he had chosen not to intervene, to leave us free to destroy ourselves if that was what we truly wanted, ultimate respect for free will even when that free will led to collective suicide.
February twenty twenty-three and climatologists gave us perhaps one more decade to reverse the trend, after that it would be too late, feedback loops runaway irreversible, permafrost melt that released methane that accelerated warming that caused more permafrost to melt, death spiral, and we continued business as usual, SUVs private jets fast fashion frenzied consumption, as if we did not know, as if we did not understand, or perhaps we knew and understood but could not change, collective addiction to growth to consumption to creative destruction of capitalism that consumed everything including its own material base.
And the cosmic crucified Christ was us too, we were crucifying ourselves by crucifying the planet, impossible to separate the two, our fate tied to that of the biosphere, when it died we would die with it, no ascension possible without it, no individual salvation in collective apocalypse, and perhaps that was the final message of the image, that ascension would come only if we accepted our crucifixion, if we renounced our unsustainable way of life, if we died to our selfish consumerist self to be reborn to planetary ecological consciousness, radical transformation of human consciousness that alone could save us now that technology and politics had failed.
Crucifixion – The Ascension February twenty twenty-three, sixty years old, and I created this image from my Parisian studio looking out the window at the gray polluted sky of the metropolis, and I wondered if we would have the courage to crucify ourselves voluntarily before being crucified involuntarily by ecological collapse, if we would accept sacrificing our comfort our wealth our power to save what could still be saved, and Christ floating before Earth gave no answer, just this silent presence arms spread that embraced or rejected or carried the blue fragile beautiful dying planet that turned in infinite black void, sole light point for light-years around, oasis of life in the cosmic desert, crucified by its own children who had forgotten it was their mother and that when you kill your mother you kill yourself, Crucifixion – The Ascension forever February twenty twenty-three forever.
Cornel Barsan
February 2023
