MOBILITY
by Steph Berns
Movement defines our cities. The speed of construction, the ever-expanding transport network, the comings and goings of people. These are places of action. Charles Dickens described the capital as "in the midst of a whirl of noise and motion".[i] Yet cities also provide their inhabitants with places of solace and prayer away from the bustle. Thus, as Dickens knew all too well, even in the “stranger's wilderness of London”, amid the congestion and commotion, architectural features such as steeples, spires and domes can “grow more ethereal”.[ii] As material manifestations of devotion, these sacred landmarks take on transcendent qualities that extend beyond the plot of land they occupy. They communicate to people in a multitude of ways, inciting some to come closer, some to stop and look, and others to stay away. These places are not inert. Whether they attract, repel or intrigue, sacred landmarks are designed to command attention and action.
Urban mobility comes in many forms, from modest and fleeting signs of devotion, like the lighting of a candle at a roadside memorial, to a ten-year construction project for a new mosque. These activities, however big or small, must negotiate the laws and ways of the urban terrain alongside the beliefs and practices of both established and new communities. On occasion, tensions may arise, but so may opportunities for new encounters. In this sense, mobility is not synonymous with movement but rather refers to the powers and politics that influence whether and how people, things, information and capital move or remain in place. Thus, to consider mobility and religion within the urban landscape is to acknowledge the practices that create, maintain or threaten sacred sites. Because space is limited and in high demand in cities such as London, Amsterdam and Berlin, every square metre must be justified. Even a procession or a pop-up stall requires permission for its brief occupation of the street. What is its purpose? Who does it serve? Who does it disturb or offend?
The field of mobilities research (developed by John Urry and Mimi Sheller) examines the spatial mobility of people and things, the circulation of information and capital, the physical means which facilitate movement (including embodied practices and infrastructures) as well as processes of place-making and dwelling.[iii] By doing so, places – be they a city or one's home – are never immutable but are always ‘in process’ and ‘being made’ by what is practised within and around them.[iv] Accordingly, sacred places within urban landscapes are complex, contingent and subject to change. For example, Saint Michael's Church in Berlin Mitte has endured a varied history, having lost part of its roof during the Second World War, then being obscured by the Berlin Wall, and now attracting tourists drawn to its wartime connections. Throughout this, the Church (as a hybrid of both people and materials) has remained an active participant in these differential mobile regimes (namely, religion, war and tourism).
The visibility of sacred sites is not solely dependent on the prominence of buildings. They are also made known by the comings and goings of the people who attend services or events. For instance, we may not know the mosque or Pentecostal church in the next neighbourhood, but on Friday afternoons and Sunday mornings, the streams of people walking in white clothes give the religions visual and material form. Likewise, the sounds of music, preaching or bells and the smells of candles or food extend the perceptible presence of the sites. Though only providing cursory access to the communities’ devotional practices, these transient activities possess the power to prompt diverse responses in those witnessing such acts, from admiration and debate to acts of piety or resistance.
There are also activities, like processions, that move away from the confines of buildings and enable communities to share their beliefs and, as a parishioner from a London Catholic church described, take “God's message to the streets”. This message is also a call to action. Following a procession organised by Southwark Cathedral, one member told me,
"I want people to see that event happening and go, 'Wow! Where have all these people come from?' So they get curious, maybe notice the Cathedral, maybe come in and who knows where that might lead?"
The streets offer the potential to encounter new audiences who would never seek out the processors’ place of worship. Yet streets also present contested spaces where religious performances may be unwelcome. At the very minimum, the processions disrupt the daily rhythms of the city, forcing passers-by to respond to their presence.
Irrespective of how they are perceived, such mobile rituals increase the visibility of the religious communities, beyond their places of worship. They also connect sacred places to other entities within the built environment, whether this be the food market (for Harvest Festival), other churches (on Ecumenical walks) or the local park (for the Islamic festival of Eid ul-Fitr). This not only helps the religious communities to feel orientated to the local area; it positions places of worship as central elements within the congregations’ collective urban imaginaries.
Many of these rituals invoke places that are far off in time and, occasionally, in space too. For instance, when processors on Palm Sunday walk through the city, they imagine the streets described in the Christian scriptures. Similarly, at the River Blessing, on London Bridge, prayers are said for those who worked, travelled and died in the Thames and for Christ who was baptised in the River Jordan. The Diwali story is also evoked during a procession along one of London's bridges. Here, the Hindu God Rama's escape across a bridge of monkeys is enacted by acrobats. These activities take place in two landscapes: the city where the communities are physically situated and the collectively imagined places named in sacred texts, like the Ramayana, or in folklore.
How we move around and within buildings is also affected by sacred geographies: When the Amsterdam Jesuit church, The Sower, was converted to the Fatih mosque, the direction of prayer was re-orientated towards Mecca. This not only required covering the church doorway with a prayer wall, thus rendering the main entrance redundant, it changed how people navigated the building, from where they entered to the direction they knelt in to pray. Similarly, when places of worship are converted into buildings serving non-religious activities, the conversion process often involves removing features that invited devotional responses, such as the statues and altars at what is now the Chassé Dance Studios in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, from the street, these buildings continue to look like churches. And so the assumptions of the visitor – who sees only a church – differ dramatically to those of locals who know and use these buildings as conversions.
Objects are also mobile, as they travel to or from sacred places. In some situations, things are brought to a sacred site, such as the tokens tied to the gate of Crossbones Graveyard, which then attract more people to look and leave offerings. People also carry objects (such as processional crosses and banners) to create mobile sacred spaces that communicate anew with passers-by. Other things are discarded, such as the deconsecrated Hindu statues thrown into the Thames or the petals scattered by children on a procession. Although the objects’ associated rituals are fleeting, they leave behind reminders that continue to communicate (see Beekers). And some things simply do not move. When immobile objects – such as burial grounds or archaeological remains relating to ancient rituals – are understood to possess sacred significance, they provide potent roots to affirm and construct the metropolis’s long religious past.
Religion in the urban landscape, as Robert Orsi wrote in Gods of the City, exists in “the midst of social life”, because the same “currents of life” that flow through our cities also flow through religious spaces.[v] So how does one capture the urban sacred? As cities are forever in states of flux, we can only catch snapshots of the action. The Urban Sacred catalogue provides a visual record of moments across three cities: they bear witness to the many activities that animate religious sites and, simultaneously, generate new forms of encounter.
[i] Dickens, C (1839). The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. W. H. Colyer: London, p.40
[ii] Dickens, C (1853). Bleak House. Bradbury and Evans: London, p. 469.
[iii] Sheller, M (2011). 'Mobility' Sociopedia. isa. http://www.sagepub.net/isa/resources/pdf/mobility.pdf
[iv] Sheller M and Urry J (2004). Places to Play, Places in Play. In: Sheller M and Urry J (eds) Tourism Mobilities: Places to Play, Places in Play. London and New York: Routledge, pp.1-10.
[v] Orsi, R. A (1999). Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape. Indiana University Press, p.57.
