Photo Exhibition "Alps & Himalayas, yesterday & today"
Photo Exhibition "In Search of Eternal Happiness"


Photo Exhibition "Alps & Himalayas, yesterday & today"

It is not so very long ago that the harsh daily life of the mountain dwellers of the Alps bore many similarities to the lives of the peoples of the high Himalayas today. Travellers from the Alpine regions fly out to Kathmandu today and set off into the mountains to find themselves transported into a world which would be very familiar to their grandparents, and they click away with their cameras to capture these “villages where time stands still”.
They are fascinated by the traditional lifestyles and working conditions, crafts, cultures and costumes, the simple life continuing unchanged in the natural cycle of the four seasons. Yet their own homes did not look so very different only half a century ago.

These similarities and the gap between yesterday’s and today’s worlds are captured in the exhibition Alps &Himalayas, yesterday & today, which presents an unusual visual bridge between the two mountain regions. Identical scenes, past and present, are placed side by side to document parallel moments in the lives of the mountain dwellers: daily life and everyday tasks; children at work and children at play; scenes and symbols in both mountain worlds. The photographs are a reminder that while technical progress and the comforts of modern life are in evidence throughout the Alps, there are still many people in the Himalayas eking out a meagre living in the harsh conditions that used to characterise Alpine life. Like their Alpine counterparts, these people want to assert their desire for progress, modern comforts, and a place in the twenty-first century, and do not want to live in a museum of backwardness to please nostalgic tourists.

The Himalayan photographs have been taken over the last fifteen years; the Alpine photographs are copies taken from old family collections and from the few available photographic documentations of Alpine farming life over the past sixty years.

The exhibition Alps & Himalayas, yesterday & today has been organised and produced by Patricia East for Eco Himal, the Society for Ecological Co-operation between the Alps and the Himalayas.

Technical Details

The pictures, mounted in wooden frames, each hold two photographs depicting similar scenes from the Alps and the Himalayas. An additional frame describes the project background.

Eco Himal will transport, install and dismantle the exhibition, charging these costs to the organiser, who is also responsible for the pictures on site.

Exhibition Elements:

• 23 framed photographs (50 x 40 cm, )
• 1 framed text (50 x 40 cm)

or

• 23 framed photographs (70 x 50 cm, )
• 1 framed text (50 x 40 cm)

For further information pls. click here:
Press release (pdf)

Photo Exhibition "In Search of Eternal Happiness"


The exhibition initiated by Eco Himal is based on a photographic competition conducted in 2000 among visitors to the Himalayas.

The objective was twofold: to get the travellers interested in the everyday lives of the local population but also to promote critical reflection on their own behaviour as tourists, in line with the creed "Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints".

The competition

centred on three topics:

From the almost 400 photographs submitted, 22 were selected for the exhibition. The presentation of these outstanding pictures, designed as a travelling show, can provide a good starting point for more in-depth discussions.

Technical Details

The photographs, mounted in wooden frames, depict people, their cultural environment and everyday lives. In addition, there are six illustrated display boards describing Nepal and the projects carried out by Eco Himal. Tibetan prayer flags, in five colours representing the five elements of the Tibetan-Buddhist cosmos, give the exhibition a unique Himalayan touch. A self-supporting information column for displaying lists of photographs, folders and other brochures is available on request.

Eco Himal will transport, install and dismantle the exhibition, charging these costs to the organiser, who is also responsible for the pictures on site.

Exhibition Elements:

• 22 framed photographs (50 x 70 cm)
• 6 display boards (102 x 95 or 50 x 50 cm)
• Information column (180 x 100 x 60 cm)
• Prayer flags
  

For the further Information such as press text, please see at:

Himalaya2000 (pdf 768 K)