The Ghetto Tarot
Apr. 29th, 2015 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarot_scholarA friend of mine alerted me to the existence of The Ghetto Tarot, and I wanted to share it here.
I love the idea of photographic Tarot decks, especially updated or just new interpretations of the iconic images. I love the idea, but the execution so far has been lacking. Things got one step closer with Alice Smeets's The Ghetto Tarot, a collaborative fundraising art project. I encourage you to read more about the project at the above IndieGoGo link.
The Afro-Caribbean milieu of this project is certainly appropriate, given Pamela Colman-Smith's own heritage; I haven't seen all of the images yet but I can say already that I particularly love Death and The Sun, as they are less literal recreations of Colman-Smith's plateaus and more a portrait of Haiti, Haitians, and Port-au-Prince themselves.
Death
The Sun
I admit to liking the simple recreations less than these images, but I still love Smeets's collaboration with Haitian artists on this, and the fact that the profits from the deck will go to them. Tarot and art as a force for good in the world. Plus, sometimes the literal recreations actually work out well, like in The Moon and the 3 of Swords.
The Moon
The 3 of Swords
Others work because the Colman-Smith's original artwork was striking and made for a well-composed photo. Yet somehow, the impression is starker when it's a photograph. Take the 9 of Swords, one of my favorite cards (in terms of aesthetic, not in terms of divinatory meaning. Obviously!)
9 of Swords
I don't know if I'm going to buy a copy of this deck yet, or if I'm going to opt for a poster print. I know already that I probably wouldn't use this deck much to read, but some of these photographs are just too beautiful to pass up. Besides, it's for a good cause.
I love the idea of photographic Tarot decks, especially updated or just new interpretations of the iconic images. I love the idea, but the execution so far has been lacking. Things got one step closer with Alice Smeets's The Ghetto Tarot, a collaborative fundraising art project. I encourage you to read more about the project at the above IndieGoGo link.
The Afro-Caribbean milieu of this project is certainly appropriate, given Pamela Colman-Smith's own heritage; I haven't seen all of the images yet but I can say already that I particularly love Death and The Sun, as they are less literal recreations of Colman-Smith's plateaus and more a portrait of Haiti, Haitians, and Port-au-Prince themselves.
Death
The Sun
I admit to liking the simple recreations less than these images, but I still love Smeets's collaboration with Haitian artists on this, and the fact that the profits from the deck will go to them. Tarot and art as a force for good in the world. Plus, sometimes the literal recreations actually work out well, like in The Moon and the 3 of Swords.
The Moon
The 3 of Swords
Others work because the Colman-Smith's original artwork was striking and made for a well-composed photo. Yet somehow, the impression is starker when it's a photograph. Take the 9 of Swords, one of my favorite cards (in terms of aesthetic, not in terms of divinatory meaning. Obviously!)
9 of Swords
I don't know if I'm going to buy a copy of this deck yet, or if I'm going to opt for a poster print. I know already that I probably wouldn't use this deck much to read, but some of these photographs are just too beautiful to pass up. Besides, it's for a good cause.
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Date: 2015-04-29 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-30 03:33 pm (UTC)