NY Times: Native Eyes on a Land South of the Clouds
I hope to get to the American Museum of Natural History to see the “Voices from South of the Clouds” exhibition. The NY Times reviewed it in their Arts section, and the Times online shows some stunning images in a slideshow accompanying the article.
The photographs exhibited were taken by villagers in the Yunnan province of China, a diverse and distant region of that vast country. They had been provided with cameras by the Nature Conservancy as part of the Photovoice project, to record their traditions and the stunning landscapes of their homeland, which have come into risk of being lost to development as highways and tourism reach the area.
There have been other, similar projects done recently–just last month, I read about street children in India who had been given cameras. There can result images of startling beauty and great artistic merit. I am tempted to find a camera suitable for our eight-year-old, to see what he finds important and worthy of recording, and I encourage other parents to do so, too.
***
As a sidenote, I was amused by the article’s closing lines, which should put things in perspective for those who trumpet the modern, man-made world:
After touring New York, the villagers said they were impressed but not overawed. The buildings are very tall, said Ananzhu. “But even the tallest building,” he noted, “is not as high as our lowest mountain.”