Spirit of Life

Life is a multidimensional force generating a spirit, which every human culture uses to build up a heritage, creating major narratives, called cosmovisions. Many of these storytellings appear already written by nature, shaping the sacred through matter, space and light.
In this series Heinz Plenge combines aspects of natural, cultural and intangible heritage to express the spiritual and colourful dimension of life.

Mount Etna, an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily (Italy) is the longest recorded active volcano. In winter it is covered by snow as it reaches more than 3300 meters. The photo shows all four natural elements: air (the sky with it clouds); earth (the brown soil of the mountain); fire (the sun illuminating the tree); and water (in form of snow and steam).

In Mayantuyacu, a primary forest in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon, maestro Jaun Flores (left) performs an Ashaninka ritual to heal a patient (right) in front of the boiling Mayantuyacu River.

The facade of the Huaca de la Luna ("Temple of the Moon") in Trujillo, Peru, has been built by the Moche people of northern Peru.

The ceremonial temple of Caracol at Montegrande in Jaen (Peru) shows a spiral path turning inward, like the shell of a snail ("Caracol" in Spanish). The spiral as a symbol of life and regeneration is a recurrent element of Andean ceremonial architecture since its beginnings.

This is a funerary monument of the Chachapoya culture in the Rio Abiseo National Park (Peru). The combination of colours aims to express the Chachapoya cosmovistion showing the transition of living beings from the moment of death (purple of the rock) to the condition of spiritual eternity (blue of the sky).

Salar de Uyuni in the Bolivian Altopianoi is the world's largest salt flat and looks like a huge lake of water because of the reflection the salt creates.

The Borobudur Temple in Central Java (Indonesia), is the largest and one of the most important and visited Buddhist temples in the world dating back to the 9th century. It has been rediscovered in the 19th century and slowly returned to being a place of worship, recovering its spiritual memory.

This picture of a cave painting was taken in Chauvet Cave, located in the South of France, which was only discovered in 1994 and represents one of the world's most important archaeological sites with very well-preserved cave paintings dating back to about 37’000 years ago.

The paintings suggest that during the Paleolithic, early feline species were also present in the northern hemisphere, and not only in Africa or India.

The two carriers portrayed are members of the indigenous Huayruros Quechua community, inhabiting the region since Inca times. They are contemplating the sacred mountains recognising and recontacting their own ancestors. In the background they are mirrored by the two mountain peaks, Apu Huaynapicchu and Apu Huchuypicchu, representing sacred ancestors and symbolising the connection between the past and the present.