The New Yorker:

Kate Friend set out to make a series about the places where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared. Her pilgrimage took a curious turn.

By Sam Knight

Not long after she moved to Lisbon with her partner and their son, Kate Friend, a British photographer, learned that Pope Francis would soon make a visit. Friend grew up in what she understood to be a post-religious age. When she was seven or eight, she and her older brother refused to go to Sunday school. As an adult, Friend lived and worked abroad extensively, witnessing faith in many forms, most memorably in parts of Asia, but religion always seemed somewhat exotic, or like something that other people did. In Portugal, the impending arrival of the Pope, in the summer of 2023, revealed a living, believing European society all around her. “It was sort of palpable. This thing is happening,” Friend told me. “I started just going into churches and realizing that everyone was having this very different experience to me.”

Friend’s previous project, “As Chosen By . . .,” had been a series of jewel-like portraits of flowers, selected by notable artists, designers, and other creative spirits. (Ai Weiwei chose “Mother of Thousands,” a crimson-blooming succulent.) She now found herself pondering another series, this time involving wildflowers and holy ground. She was drawn to the necessary optimism of pilgrimage, a state of mind that she recognized from the practice of photography. “It does feel like a sense of optimism and faith and hope that you’re going to come back with something,” Friend said. “You have to believe that there is a picture there. Otherwise you’re not going to go.”

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