Body Psalms

a project to re•sanctify the body

Body Psalms is a celebration of the sanctity of the body through filmed rituals involving dancers and diverse ordinary people unfolding passages of mystical texts painted on their skin to create moving sculptural poetry.

In Body Psalms words take on new dimensions of expression that appear in no other medium.  Words become moving sculpture as they unfold, stretch, recombine and morph into other words and images.

Tim Holmes is using a striking form of art– a kind of 3D poetry– to engage communities in dialog about exploitation, culture, the church, and the body. Body Psalms is a celebration of the sanctity of the body through rituals and award-winning films involving dancers unfolding passages of the Psalms painted on their skin in a performance of moving sculptural poetry. 

As wonderful as capitalism is, in its arena all things become reduced to commodities. In this cultural atmosphere increasingly governed by the ethics of pornography, where nothing is too sacred to be exploited by amoral corporate power, the body becomes the preferred currency. 

The values of exploitive culture, like global warming, are symptoms with deep roots in all directions.  Religious tradition is as much to blame as the corporations that profit, as you and I who gladly pay the price to view the flesh, a soul vitamin we truly crave.  Now, cultural transformation is crucial to avoid a coming catastrophic failure to connect with our own flesh.

Holmes studio is engaging universities, churches, civic groups students and youth in an ongoing dialogue about the meaning and purpose of our carnal presence in the world.  If you or your organization would like to participate, please contact us.

Read the story of Tim's film award.

We, the living, are distinguished by inhabiting bodies. A 3-minute video meditation:

"Leave Bodies"

The flesh answers the spirit's longing in this 2-minute video meditation featuring a young woman and an old man.

"Longing" (Ps. 63)

We all search for that moment of bliss in reconnecting with our own soul.

"Restoreth"

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