Let's Celebrate 365

This is a tremendous exhibition of photographs by Jeremy Hunter, running in the DMU Cube and Screen Lounge Matrix at Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre, Mon 21 February - Tue 5 April. Here's an extract from the notes that go with the show, written by Jeremy Hunter himself:

 "Let's Celebrate 365" is a photographic exhibition that both celebrates the world's diversity and also explores the issues of cultural traditions, rituals, festivals, diversity of beliefs and th4e astounding variety of human society. It also addresses the issues of international community cohesion and principal beliefs and faiths practised within Leicester by drawing upon the panoply of traditions and celebrations of our world through the power of impactful photographs.

One of the strengths of this country is its diversity. So this exhibition illustrates the DNA of our communities and provides the opportunity for us not to respect the difference of our ethnic minorities but also to better understand the extraordinarily different cultures and beliefs practised here.

To understand the great beliefs and faiths of the world you need a window into the soul. Festivals and celebrations have always been just that: an opportunity for entering into a world of myth and legend, drama and music, colour and sound. In our increasingly complex planet, the significance of tolerance as one of our motivating forces in contemporary life has become only too apparent since the start of this millennium

However, this exhibition of Let's Celebrate 365 has much greater importance. It not only helps us enter into a world of different cultures and beliefs. It also makes us realise e inhabit diverse worlds of faith and culture - where the linking commonality is the incredible power of belief.

Let's Celebrate 365 therefore is an exploration of the amazing variety of our multicultural landscape. In thirty-five years of travel to over sixty countries across five continents, I have been able to witness and photograph cultures where people look at the world very differently. Many of the ceremonies and rituals exhibited here have remained unchanged for centuries, in some cases thousands of years. What remains unchanged today and the reason for the continuation of these festivals through the centuries is the belief that participating in them can liberate the celebrant from the miseries and sufferings of life. the atonement of sins, the elements of self punishment and the opportunity to come back changed all remain key elements.

Watch a video of Jeremy Hunter speaking at the launch of his exhibition, Let's Celebrate 365, at Phoenix Square: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C14WCB_dV0w&feature=youtu.be

This page on Phoenix Square's website has a slideshow of images from the exhibition: http://phoenix.org.uk/index.php?cms_id=422

Follow this link to the Phoenix Square blog, where Jeremy Hunter discusses this exhibition: http://phoenixsquare.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/lets-celebrate-365-jeremy-hunter-discusses-his-exhibition/

For more information about Jeremy Hunter, visit: http://www.jeremyhunter.com/