Land of Saints
© Sanne De WildeIn 2019, Sanne De Wilde was invited to Monopoli, in Puglia, by the photography festival PhEST to document religious festivities under the theme “Religion and Myths.” Her journey led to a region where saints travel by sea, fireworks sanctify the night sky, and devotion is staged with theatrical precision.
She chose violet as a recurring colour — both filter and symbolic thread. Historically, purple dye was rare and costly, reserved for emperors, kings, and later bishops. In Christian iconography, it cloaks the Madonna. In Buddhism and Hinduism, it is associated with the crown chakra — transcendence and spiritual awakening. In colour psychology, violet evokes imagination and creativity. It became the chromatic bridge between holiness and mysticism, spectacle and introspection.
“Through photography, I am interested in how faith performs itself — how imagination takes physical form in fabric, smoke, fireworks, wax, water. Religion, like photography, constructs realities. Both depend on framing, repetition, and shared perception.
In these images, devotion is neither romanticised nor dismissed. It is observed as a living system — one that reveals how deeply humans need to gather around something larger than themselves, whether a saint or a story. If capitalism is sustained by belief in abstract value, religious ritual reminds us that there are other forms of wealth: consolation, spectacle, transcendence, hope.
Imagination is not an escape from reality. It is one of the forces that build it.”
