Belinda Allen
Sacred sites: Cooks River mandala

This image continues my ‘Sacred sites’ series of mandala-style landscapes, with photographs of vegetation at the banks of the Cooks river in Hurlstone Park. Each of us has ‘sacred sites’, special places that engender a sense of rapture, of connection to a realm beyond the mundane. The ‘mandala’ format reflects similar representations in sacred images of both eastern and western spiritual practice, expressing the potential for a transcendental relationship to landscape, and inviting an immersive and meditative experience.