Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true, that life imitates art far more than art imitates life…….Oscar Wilde
On the 15th April 2018, I was playing with some photos I had taken in Paris and I pondered what the earth would look like after we careless humans had finished with it. That thought prompted me to make this image of Notre Dame Cathedral with water pouring in, the roof destroyed, given back to nature…….Post apocalyptic . While I posted it on Instagram and Facebook at the time, I ended up removing it from Instagram as it’s not my usual style of work. I left it on Facebook though as it’s harder to scroll back and to be honest, I’d forgotten about it.
Scroll forward a year and I woke up to the news of Notre Dame being destroyed by fire. Then Facebook sent me a memory… a reminder that I did this picture.. On the 15th April 2018… Exactly a year to the date that Notre Dame burned. While I pictured it flooded and it had actually burned, I imagine the water inside would have been quite plentiful after the fire had been put out.
Then I saw a photo taken of the inside of the cathedral after the fire.. The roof was damaged in a very similar way. Not exact but similar.. And if you’ve been to Notre Dame, you’ll see that it’s exactly the same area that I imagined damaged. While I know it was human error due to the renovation work, I have to be honest, I felt totally spooked by the similarities and of course the date, being exactly a year prior to it’s destruction. How often does life imitate art? I think more often than we actually realise.
I’m a strong believer in envisioning our future the way we want it. I’ve always kept a vision board and mostly everything has happened that I’ve put on them. Is it really a secret of the universe or do we see the images of what we want and remind ourselves constantly what we’re working towards? Is it a combination perhaps of the two? Really, does it matter? As long as I’m travelling the road I want to be on and it’s working for me, I’ll keep doing it. But when I think of envisioning my future, this wasn’t what I had in mind. It makes me more careful of what thoughts I allow my brain to entertain.
So I’ll share this image of Notre Dame that I named “After We Leave” even though it’s not my usual style… It still freaks me out a bit to think that I did this exactly a year before Notre Dame was damaged. Was it a premonition? Or just a spooky coincidence. I guess we’ll never know. There are some mysteries of this thing we call life that remain just that.. A mystery. And just in case it does work, let’s all imagine a world living in harmony, where war, poverty, climate change and crooked politicians don’t exist and we live as one with nature…. It can’t hurt can it?
The image on the left. Credit Livonne Imagery.
The image on the right. Credit:CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/POOL VIA REUTERS
Livonne Imagery 