Excerpt from the review by Ryan Wells:

“What makes Gardner’s work so particularly fascinating is this symmetry of honest ethnography and poetic license that delivers traditions from vastly different societies—Niger (“Deep Hearts”), Ethiopia (“Rivers of Sand,” “The Nuer”), New Guinea (“Dead Birds), Benares (“Forest of Bliss”)—as almost a variation on something of our own. The exoticism is not exotic per se; it feels domestic. And in doing so, Gardner captures more of an credulous audience and removes the barriers of sterile field study that otherwise lacks rhythm and power to the images.”