Bookshop Situation Series: BAPTISTRY TANKS IN USA

Index welcomes you to the release of BAPTISTRY TANKS IN USA, a photographic survey by Carl Johan Erikson.

In BAPTISTRY TANKS IN USA Carl Johan Erikson continues his long-term artistic investigation of artifacts and phenomena in Charismatic Christian environments – now focusing on so called baptistry tanks used for adult baptism in the American Bible Belt. In the book we can follow the production at Piedmont Composites & Tooling in Taylorsville in North Carolina, one of the world’s largest producers of fiberglass baptistry tanks. Another part showing how baptistry tanks are installed in various types of churches, from megachurches in Texas to small chapels Alabama. The book also includes a personal essay by curator and writer Natasha Marie Llorens, who grew up in the American Bible Belt. Together, Erikson’s images and Llorens’ text create a complex and multifaceted picture of faith, culture, and politics—from both a personal and global perspective.

BAPTISTRY TANKS IN USA will be presented at Index through a conversation between Carl Johan Erikson and artist Karl Johan Stigmark, who also served as the book’s editor. Natasha Marie Llorens will participate by reading her essay Specific Objects. The presentation will be held in both Swedish and English.

Index presented the first part of Erikson’s project back in 1999. The exhibition TANK 1–46 showed a systematic photographic documentation of baptistry tanks (dopgravar) in chapels in the Swedish countryside, often built of simple materials and hidden under a floor hatch. The exhibition received a lot of attention and marked the beginning of Erikson’s many years of reflection on the religious context that has shaped him and many others. Read more about that exhibition at the Index archive here.