The church is a site where, through repetition, stories become dogma. It is the place in my own life where I first learned of the delicate balance between fear and love, safety and damnation: the constant push-pull of the predetermined, opposing, fixed forces of good and evil.
In small southern towns like the one I'm from, the church is not just a place of worship but a community center, a festival grounds, a food bank, and in some cases a tomb of secrecy and violent repression. In my adult life, I watch the people around me recreate sacred spaces in service of our own mythologies and in our own image.
Swampchurch is one such recreation, in part an intervention of narratives as they're being distilled and in part a meditation on ritual and belonging in paradoxical environments.