2016 Online Catalogue
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Two Bodies, One Soul Glimpses of the Alps and the Himalayas 23-26 June 2016 / Convention Foyer, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi About the cause This exhibition of mountain photography opens with the launch of 'Two Bodies, One Soul: Glimpses of the Alps and the Himalayas', a limited edition fundraising series for the Children's National Institute (childrennationalinstitute.org), a home for abandoned and orphaned children established in 1947 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, at his former residence, Swaraj Bhawan, in the northern Indian city of Allahabad. Fifty percent of any sale proceeds will go to the Children's National Institute. Any profit that still remains after all expenses have been paid will go to the artist's own research project on reducing disaster risk and supporting community adaptation to extremes in changing Himalayan environments. The project, titled ‘Understanding and enhancing the adaptation and resilience of remote high-mountain communities to hydrometeorological extremes and related geophysical hazards in a changing climate’ is supported by the University of Sheffield, UK, and the Dudley Stamp Memorial Award (Royal Geographical Society with IBG). The project involves extended fieldwork in the High Himalayas. The artist's new Himalayan music album, 'Poshpoozaa and other ancient prayers from a Kashmiri household' will also be launched at the show. The first 100 signed album CDs will be available at the venue. Any sale proceeds will go to the Children's National Institute or the aforementioned Himalayan disaster risk reduction research project. About the artist Vaibhav Kaul is a young Himalayan geographer, mountaineer, photographer, painter, singer, poet and nostalgist. He read Geography at the University of Delhi and Environmental Change and Management as a Felix Scholar at the University of Oxford. He is currently pursuing a Geography doctorate at the University of Sheffield, where he is a Vice Chancellor's Indian Scholar. Vaibhav is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. While living and working in the Himalayas of Ladakh, Lahaul, Garhwal, Kumaon, Nepal, and Sikkim, Vaibhav has photographed hundreds of extraordinary landscapes, each of which tells an enchanting story. His work has previously been seen at the India International Centre (‘The Himalaya: A Timeless Quest’, 2014) and the India Habitat Centre (‘Reverberations from the Himalaya’, 2013; 'Hear Me, O Himalaya!', 2015) in New Delhi, and on web-based knowledge platforms such as the People’s Archive of Rural India (‘Women and their Many Worlds’, 2015) and the American Geophysical Union Blogosphere (‘Kedarnath Debris Flow Disaster’, 2013). Exhibits Code Caption Print Price size (INR) (inches) A01 Ober Gabelhorn (4,063 m) and Wellenkuppe (3,903 m), as seen from near Riffelhorn (2,928 m) 9x12 6,000 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland A02 The Gorner Glacier with its tributaries descending from Breithorn (4,164 m) 9x12 6,000 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland A03 Matterhorn / Monte Cervino (4,478 m), as seen from near Unterrothorn (3,104 m) 9x12 6,000 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland A04 Shaka Cho (5,000 m), a proglacial lake dammed precariously behind a moraine at the foot of 9x12 6,000 Kangchengyao (6,889 m) Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India “Shaka Cho is very big and deep. I have seen her. She’s sitting in Kangchengyao’s lap, just above our yak pastures. She’s tilting the lap towards us because she wants to leap out and come to us. But, by the grace of Guru Rinpoche, Kangchengyao holds her back. Kangchengyao likes to feed her ice. Every now and then, a huge chunk of ice plunges into the water, making a thunderous sound and sending ripples, even waves, right across the lake. Our wise elders have told us that the benevolent Kangchengyao will hold Shaka Cho in his lap only as long as we maintain an atmosphere of piety… I think Shaka Cho will come down one day, but I can’t say when. What can I do about it anyway? I can only try to be a good man and pray for our well-being… If we are to be killed, clouds will burst and entire mountains will come down with this river and that river. Nothing will remain, only mud and boulders. These roads, bridges, houses and trucks are just toys - they will be wiped out.” “Kangchengyao has been made so powerful by Guru Rinpoche that he can end war, disease and famine. But if he is not happy with us, he may decide to destroy us. And that is when Shaka Cho will burst… For nearly thirty years, people have been saying that Shaka Cho is about to burst... We are still waiting for that disaster.” A05 The Kangchendzonga Massif (8,586 m), as seen from Delo (1,670 m) 9x12 6,000 Sikkim Himalayas / Gorkhaland, West Bengal, India “It’s not Kanchenjunga; it’s Kang-chen-dzo-nga - ‘the great snows of five hidden treasures’!” B01 Matterhorn / Monte Cervino (4,478 m), as seen from the Riffelsee Lake (2,757 m) 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B02 Matterhorn / Monte Cervino (4,478 m), as seen from the Riffelsee Lake (2,757 m) 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B03 Matterhorn / Monte Cervino (4,478 m), as seen from the Riffelsee Lake (2,757 m) 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B04 Facing the Grenz Glacier, the main feeder of the Gorner Glacier 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B05 The surface of the Gorner Glacier, which is part of the second largest glacial system in the Alps 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B06 The 12-kilometre-long Gorner Glacier, as seen from near Rotenboden (2,815 m) 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B07 Looking [L-R] towards Klein Matterhorn (3,883 m), Riffelhorn (2,928 m) and Matterhorn 9x15 7,500 (4,478) from above the Riffelsee Lake (2,757 m) Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B08 Matterhorn / Monte Cervino (4,478 m), as seen at sunset from near Findelbach (1,774 m) 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B09 Matterhorn / Monte Cervino (4,478 m, L) and Ober Gabelhorn-Wellenkuppe (4,063 m - 3,903 9x15 7,500 m, R), as seen from the Stellisee Lake (2,537 m) Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B10 The Gabelhorn Glacier descends from Ober Gabelhorn (4,063 m) and Wellenkuppe (3,903 m) 9x15 7,500 Pennine Alps / Valais, Switzerland B11 Looking [L-R] towards Rathong (6,679 m), Kabru South (7,318 m), Kabru North (7,338 m), and 9x15 7,500 Kangchendzonga (8,586 m) from Pelling (2,150 m) after a hailstorm at dusk Sikkim Himalayas / West Sikkim, India B12 A captive snow leopard at Bulbulay 9x15 7,500 Sikkim Himalayas / East Sikkim, India B13 The first rays of the morning sun at Delo (1,670 m) 9x15 7,500 Sikkim Himalayas / Gorkhaland, West Bengal, India C01 The last rays of the evening sun at Delo (1,670 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / Gorkhaland, West Bengal, India C02 Mist over Kalimpong (1,400 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / Gorkhaland, West Bengal, India C03 Mist over Thangu (4,000 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India C04 Shaka Cho (5,000 m), a glacial lake dammed precariously behind a moraine at the foot of 12x15 9,000 Kangchengyao (6,889 m) Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India C05 A stony periglacial valley near Gochung (4,800 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India C06 Grazing along the edge of Tibet (5,000 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India “Yaks give us meat and milk, which is preserved as choro [cheese]. They give us wool for warm clothes, rugs and shaggy stool tops” C07 A moist autumnal valley near Yathang (3,600 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India C08 A sacred rock at the far end of the Gurudongmar Lake (5,150 m) 12x15 9,000 Sikkim Himalayas / North Sikkim, India After completing his mystical Buddhist mission in Tibet, the great sage Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) embarks on his quest for the ‘Hidden Lands’. He, along with his retinue of disciples, arrives in this region (the northern part of present-day Sikkim) and blesses it. Here, he sows many seeds of virtue and hides many sacred treasures. He exorcises many demons and appoints them to the role of Nyedag Chosung, ‘guardians of sacred places and defenders of righteousness’. Upon entering the region from the north, the direction of the sin-extinguishing site of Chorten Nyima, Guru Rinpoche flicks a stone across the valley to test the auspiciousness of the landscape. The stone hits the foot of the Kangchengyao mountain and swells into an enormous boulder (the present-day sacred site pictured above). The expansive blessed lake of Guru-dongma, ‘the teacher and the pioneer’, emerges at this site, just northeast of Kangchengyao. According to another account, Guru Rinpoche arrives in the region via Kyithang, ‘the happy plain’ blessed with his footprint, and takes the form of Guru-dragmar or Guru-dong-mar, ‘the red-faced teacher’, to overcome a wrathful spirit at whom he hurls his vajra or indestructible thunderbolt weapon. After blinding the wrathful spirit, the thunderbolt lands at the site of the present-day sacred rock, and the blessed lake of Gurudongmar comes into being. The nearby Kangchengyao mountain either embodies or houses that thunderbolt-subdued, purified spirit. It is sacred in that Guru Rinpoche has made it the local protector of morality (by blessing it with retributive powers) and the custodian of the landscape, especially the Gurudongmar Lake and several other blessed waters (glacial lakes), including the moraine-dammed Shaka Cho on its southern side.