THE WALL TO WALL PROJECT

The Wall to Wall Project begins with a simple contention: Pilgrims - whether they are Jews traveling to the Western Wall, or Elvis fans going to Graceland - share a profound link through their devotion and their choice to express that devotion through a journey.

The Western Wall in Jerusalem is a religious shrine and landmark with a 2,000-year history. It is a supporting wall of massive limestone blocks supporting the elevated plaza that once held the Jewish Temple, and with it, the Ark of the Covenant, holding the Holiest of Holies. Here, its hundreds of thousands of visitors each year leave messages to God written on scraps of paper placed into the cracks between the limestone blocks.

For 30 years, the most-visited home in America has been Elvis Presley's Graceland, a pop-culture landmark that has taken on many of the outward signs associated with a temple, complete with its own rites, rituals and lore. A limestone wall circles the mansion where Elvis once lived; the wall has become the object of prayerful meditation and a place to leave messages to Elvis, King of Rock n' Roll

In each case, a wall has become a substitute for the object of reverence it once protected or supported. In each case, the wall becomes the mediating line between present and past, between this world and another one. In each case, pilgrims to the place form an instant community. At a moment of heightened emotions, they revel and celebrate in the company of fellow pilgrims, together seeking the intangible in the tangible. That is where the work of our project begins.

Photographer Orin Rutchick and I, Chris Welsch, came to these walls by different paths, but each of us was pursuing ideas about the nature of pilgrimages and pilgrims. Rutchick photographed the Western Wall as part of his "Push Button Memories: Landmarks Worldwide"project. He received a McKnight Photographic Fellowship for that work and a grant to pursue his next series, "These United Memories: 50 States, 50 Landmarks." That project began with Elvis Presley's Graceland, representing the state of Tennessee. As the travel reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I came to the Western Wall and Graceland while producing a series of articles on the nature of pilgrimage. My story about pilgrims in Jerusalem won a 2007 gold medal for best foreign newspaper article in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards. Intrigued by the similar themes in our work, Rutchick contacted me about working together on a project focused on the modern day pilgrims who visit Presley's Graceland and Jerusalem's Western Wall.

With a shared vision about the linkage between these two destinations, one popular and one religious, Rutchick and I have begun documenting these places during two key moments of the year.

Our work at Graceland was completed in August, during the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death. For the Western Wall, that moment is Passover, this coming April, and it is for that journey that we are seeking funding from our friends, family and those that support our work.

As photographer and writer, we have worked together to document the rituals and rites of modern day pilgrims and to consider the larger significance of these journeys in their lives. Pilgrimage is an ancient human tradition that has carried through to modern times in the surprising and fascinating ways we have demonstrated here. We believe this story has never been told as we propose to, and further believe that with profound visual linkage demonstrated in our project series, the greater idea of the universal search for meaning from place is made clearer through our documentary work.