Italian photographer’s travel notes on show in
lagoon city
(ANSA)Venice- An Italian photographer’s journey along a route connecting India to Tibet is mapped out in an exhibit that opened in Venice on Thursday .
Mimmo Fabrizi travelled the section of the Friendship Highway linking the Nepali capital of Kathmandu to Lhasa in Tibet between May and June 2005 .
He documented his travels with photographs taken in the most spectacular spots along the way, interspersed with scenes from everyday life .
The images feature shots of the most important Buddhist monasteries on the road, including the Everest base camp and the nearby temple of Rongbhuk, the highest monastery in the world at 5,500 metres above sea level .
Another of Fabrizi’s stops was Shigatse, Tibet’s second-largest city. A hill in the middle of the town is home to the Tashilhunpo Monastery, the 550-year-old traditional seat of the Panchen Lama .
Fabrizi also documents in painstaking detail the remains of many religious sites, destroyed by the Chinese Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s .
Although the photographer’s work touches on the destruction wrought by the Chinese invasion, which resulted in the exile of the Dalai Lama and the imposition of a secular state, he also highlights positive aspects of life in the region today .
Provided Chinese rule is not challenged, most religious freedoms have been restored, and Fabrizi shows people gathered for moments of prayer in the temple at Gyantse or the isolated 1,300-year-old Samye Monastery, set high in the mountains .
“The silence of these people’s gaze expresses the humanity of an entire people,” said Fabrizi. “I was particularly struck by the nomads. Although unable to speak their language when meeting them on the roads, they transmitted something incredible: firstly, a real humanity but also spirituality .
“These people often travel days and days just to take their offerings of yak butter oil to the monasteries, in order to keep candles alight” .
Fabrizi was born in the central Italian province of Viterbo but has spent many years travelling the globe, documenting different groups and their cultures .
He has worked extensively in Latin America, winning international acclaim for his photographs of Cuban people, their customs and traditions .
Tibet: Appunti di Viaggio (Tibet: Travel Notes) is on display in Venice’s Sala San Leonardo, Cannaregio, until October 30 .
