With Freedom of Mind I took a photograph of two pieces of a large Dandelion that was growing on the other side of a fence. The wind had taken them up from the Mother flower, ready to fly out into the world, but then the barbed wire on top captured them. 

For me it is a visualisation of humans who are not free in different kinds of meanings, even though every beautiful human soul deserves to be. There is still war on earth where people are taken captive and become imprisoned, like recently in the Ukraine. The barbed wire is not only a representation of this war captivity, it is also an image to show that people cannot go to a safe and/or better place, because countries have put up high walls and fences to keep out people they do not want to enter. In other countries there is still also no freedom of speech, expression, religion, sexual preferences, education. 

What I find so beautiful with dandelions, is that their seeds each have a delicate 'head' where you see all these wires. The form itself reaches out to the sky and it resembles a vessle that takes you to the inside. For me it resembles our connection with others, our Source and the Universe. We are both receiver and sender, and we all have the same core from which we exist and live. Furthermore all these wires let me think of our mind with all its synapses, neurobiological receptors and transmittors. Therefore for me the picture represents everything Gandhi said in his quote above. Even though our body may be in prison, even though we are not allowed to speak everything we want everywhere on earth, we still have our own thinking brain that can create it's own reality and freedom.

"I know

but one freedom and

that is the freedom

of the mind"

- Antoine de Saint- Exupéry 

I chose to make the picture in black and white to give it a Schindler's List atmosphere, because even though it is an image to give hope, it is mostly an image that shows the sad truth of humans living in captivity. 

Details

Samsung SM-G525F

F1,8

1/192s

4,00mm

ISO 200

Black and White filter