Andreas Duscha, Places of Worship (2008)
For the project, Places of Worship, the Vienna based artist and photographer Andreas Duscha has documented twenty-four interfaith prayer rooms at airports across Asia, Europe and the United States. These rooms are open to all faiths. Since the 1980s they have grown in number in response to increased migration and the globalisation of mobility. Is there an inherent aesthetic of quasi neutral spiritual rooms? Do the symbols of the country’s dominant religion influence the appearance of these rooms? Religious conflicts are a global phenomenon, at the same time it seems possible that the utopia of an interfaith dialogue manifests itself within the context of the high-security airport.

Duscha’s work, that allows us to make comparisons of different aesthetics and predominant cultural codes within the photographic series, is the second in a curated series of images by artists, designers and researchers highlighting the cross-overs in material and visual culture show-cased by the Design History and Theory department.

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