The Things Not Seen Are Eternal

In 2021, while passing by Riverside Church in San Antonio, Dyal noticed an open door and after not setting foot inside the building for 50-years, entered. From the outside, the church appeared to be out of use. Greeted by the longtime pastor, Dyal learned that the large church, which had once been one of the largest and fastest growing in the city with a congregation of over 1,000 congregants, had dwindled to a present attendance of a dozen or so mostly elderly, long-time members. The congregation now gathers in one small area and many of the rooms and spaces which are no longer in use, without electricity and slowly deteriorating. Dyal began to return regularly—on Sundays to get to know and spend time with congregants—and on weekdays to document the many spaces no longer in use.

Dyal’s painterly photographs are devoid of people but heavy with the echoes of past human presence—chairs, toys, robes, furniture, artificial flowers and books—relics of an earlier time. Dyal’s background as an architect is evident in his portrayal of the buildings, their textures, colors, and details. Multiple doorways lead the viewer through the book and objects in the photographs often appear as sculptural inventions. A series of archival black and white photographs at the end of the book, some including Dyal himself as a child his family, show the church in its heyday, offering a counterpoint to its present state. The photographs can be read as a commentary on the increasing secularisation of society, and rapidly diminishing church attendance. Exploring the quiet and darkened spaces of the church became a reflective experience for Dyal, wrestling with the notion of the divine, belief and non-belief, the passage of time, family, and memory.