LAMO Newsletter January 2017
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VOLUME 1, ISSUE 4 JANUARY 1st, 2017 Thread Whispers, Chapter 1 VISITOR'S COMMENTS ................................. Lovely experience! This quiet space makes me Of Rock and Apricot and Mountaintop introspect & look at my art practice in a new way. Hope to take a lot from Leh. Thanks. MONISHA AHMED exhibition at LAMO this summer was spoken word, they part of that on-going engagement with looked at theatrical -Neha Puri Dhir, Textile Artist he Brogpas of Dha and Hanu the Brogpas. performances of have ignited many people’s their stories by the imaginations over the years. Using their rich tradition of oral lit- proponents them- T An inspiration for what can be done for young Inspired by legends of them being erature, Shivani and Corinne explore selves evoking their minds to carve their cultural and artistic future descendants of Alexander the Great’s the world they inhabit – from a man’s imagination and Bravo LAMO! Army and the last Aryans to three search for elusive love to Zawa, a with each character brothers migrating over the mountains woman whose husband has turned to playing out the story Wendell Rodricks & Jerome Marrel, Textile from Gilgit, they have fuelled many ash because of a curse, to a witch who against the backdrop Designer Thread Whispers, of Rock and Apricot and Mountaintop creative reconstructions of history. devours the flesh of unsuspecting men of their landscape, Shivani Gupta and Corinne Adam’s and animals. But going beyond the wearing their tradi- Ladakh is a region rich in story telling, tional dress or using found objects and many people remember sitting This building is a wonder and it holds such a from plastic waste to natural materials. huddled around the stove on long, cold good creative spirit. winter evenings intently listening to Shivani is a professional photographer their elders or professional story-tell- Linda Connor, Photographer and classical Mohiniattam dancer from ers regale them night after night. Un- Goa/Mumbai, and Corinne E Adams fortunately, other forms of entertain- is a writer, teacher, and musician from ment, especially television, have now What an honour to be here with you all. Bravo. Texas/Japan. Working with the people replaced sessions like these. And as of Dha and Hanu, Shivani and Corinne memory fades, stories get lost or for- Anish Kapoor, Artist converged the practices of photogra- gotten for the future. LAMO is com- phy, performance, story-telling, sound mitted to ensuring they are recorded and video to present Thread Whispers. and stay relevant, especially as they in- Very wonderful and inspirational exhibition. A multi-disciplinary project it drew spire a search for a fantastical realism Thank you for bringing the children of our from many fields including anthropol- amongst the ordinary. world and the human experience closer ogy, visual arts, poetry and translation. together! May all beings be free! It contemplated how communities in- Ani Yangchen vestigate their history; the part factual memory plays in this and the part of Monisha Ahmed is Executive Director, Thread Whispers exhibited in the Gallery - Gyawo Wing imaginative reconstruction. LAMO Water through your lenses Are Leh’s glaciers receding? cameras but taking photos with TASHI MORUP seen the mouth of the big glacier decades Participatory Photography Workshop single-use cameras that work with ago. “It was right here, the black cavity film rolls was a new experience for eh’s water sources are stretched of the glacier so big that one could step most of them. Taking photos when to their maximum. Mushrooming into it,” she said holding her head in dis- you only have a limited number of pho- Lhotels and growing population belief. She even believed that the black tos available and not being able to see are some of the main reasons. Last sum- soot on the glacial mouth was due to them immediately like with a digital mer, the age-old churpon system in Leh charcoal used by our ancestors to build camera, gives a whole other experience collapsed and people struggled fierce- the glacier. to the photographer. Otsal is currently ly to get water to their fields and many the only photographer in town to have regretted irrigating their agricultural This myth in Ladakh about using char- a darkroom where development can lands for there was not enough water in coal to build glaciers was broken on our be done, and he offered to develop the Leh’s stream. As a part of the workshop trip to Phutse glacier by Susanne Smith, films and show us the process. 'Water through your Lenses' LAMO de- Professor at Heidelberg University, who cided to visit the two glaciers Phutse and told us the opposite – she suggested The photographs, later exhibited at Nangtse that supply water to Leh town. that Europe faced the Little Ice Age in LAMO, represented the diverse forms the 18th century, and perhaps this cor- water can have ranging from clouds, to The first visit was to Nangtse and we relates with a similar impact felt in the streams and ice. They also visualized were accompanied by Kunzes Dol- Himalayas. Perhaps corroborating this the various uses of water in Leh from is the story about the 12- A participant working on her mind-mapping of water. water used to wash vehicles, to build year drought Leh faced JUDITH MULLER and ideas through photography. The with cement, to get drinking water, to some 70 years ago and method of participatory photography perform religious rituals, and many the charcoal remains at picture is worth a thousand research aims at revealing opinions and more examples. A critical point of view Nangtse. words”, is an often-repeated perceptions of participants that may not on current social and economic pro- Chinese proverb. This idea was be visible through verbal interviews. cesses often became visible through the On the other hand, Phu- A images. tse glacier, which I last put to practice in a workshop I held at Mind-mapping was used as a first step, LAMO in April this year that focused before the participants actually went visited in 2009 with em- on the method of participatory photog- outside and took photos, to do a kind Each photo selected for the exhibition inent glaciologist Joseph raphy and mind-mapping to visualize of brainstorming of what water means is an individual artwork; each was both Gergan looked more or what water meant to people in Leh. for them. Everyone created a graphic on abstract and creative. Later, I inter- less the same. Susanne Tibetan fine paper with words that they viewed participants to better understand said this meant, the gla- Living in a cold desert region such as think of, when thinking of water. I was the ideas behind them. cier is stable. However, Ladakh, people face several challenges joined in the workshop by Otsal Jig- Kunzes Dolma showing the receded Nangtse Glacier if we look closely at earlier when it comes to managing their scarce stenpa, a practicing photographer from The experience of doing this workshop images of the glacier we water resources. Water plays a crucial Leh, who provided a theoretical and showed me how important and relevant ma from Gangles. Now 50 years old, can see a marked difference in the sizes role for all forms of life and is affect- technical input on photography. the topic of water seems to be for many Kunzes had spent her youth in Nang- and note that it has receded too. The trip ed by various processes in societies all people in Leh, also the young ones. It tse valley herding livestock. Along the taught us the need to be vigilant of the over the world. Especially where water The participants were all residents of taught me how worried most of the par- three-hours trek she kept us engaged glaciers and constantly monitor them, as is scarce, like in Ladakh, these prob- Leh, mainly Old Town and Changspa, ticipants are about the future of water in with stories from her past, showing us they are important to Leh's water supply. lems become very obvious. from the age of 16 to 45 years. Many Leh. I felt that the workshop was just a the abandoned Pulu (small house) of them were familiar with the use of starting point that could lead to a much where she lived for many years My PhD project focuses on water is- more intense project on wa- when she herded sheep, goats and sues and socio-environmental change in ter in the near future. yaks. She remembered names of Leh. As part of this study I approached different mountains including LAMO to hold a workshop where par- one named after the famous 12th ticipants would use photography to col- century Tibetan Yogi Mila Raspa, lect ideas on the various forms water Judith Müller, is a PhD can- who once wandered in the valley. can embody, besides its obvious appear- didate in Geography from ance, using the method of participatory Heidelberg University, Ger- As we neared the top, with bated photography and mind-mapping. Par- many; the workshop was breath to see the glacier, but what ticipatory photography is a tool used for supported by LAMO and the awaited us there took all of us by Heidelberg Centre for the surprise! There was no sign of the community empowerment where peo- Phutse Glacier in September 2016 ple contribute by sketching out a cer- Environment. glacier except for a few snowl- tain issue by visualizing their thoughts ines on the mountain’s edge. For Kunzes it was even harder to believe as she had Tashi Morup is Projects Director, LAMO Festival Poetry Photography Dosmoche got more colourful In collaboration with American photographer, Lin- at LAMO’s public collaboration Khayal Ladakhi Jigmet da Connor, presented a slide- that included the wishing tree, Nurboo, LAMO orga- show with music of her major an open canvas, photography nized a regional Urdu work ODYSSEY.