Preview
IMAGES IN PLATINUM: THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
Allan King
Runs until February 15
Max Bell Foyer (The Banff Centre)
Photographer Allan King had to move far away from his native Calgary and observe the daily lives of the people of Southeast Asia to discover what matters in life.
Now he’s sharing some of those lessons in a photography exhibition titled Images in Platinum: The Mountain Peoples of South East Asia. The exhibition features 16 platinum-palladium prints taken by the self-taught photographer during the 13 years he lived in Bangkok and traveled throughout Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Trained as a mining engineer, King moved to Bangkok in the 1980s and became involved in the advertising business. Eventually, the people who inhabit the villages dotting the mountains of Southeast Asia became an ever-increasing fascination to him.
"Nothing has changed there," King said. "They don’t have electricity or television and they don’t want it."
Equipped with a camera and an overwhelming sense of curiosity, he set off to the most remote corners of the region for weeks at a time to photograph the people who live there. He discovered communities that had very little, but were made up of the most generous humans he had ever encountered.
"You learn how incredible these people are," King said. "Their lifespan is short and their infant mortality is high, yet they offer water, food and even a place to sleep if you need it."
An example of this spirit is captured in King’s photograph of a Ta-Oy man in the village of Nanong Noi in Laos. The elderly looking man is sitting on the ground weaving a basket. In fact, he’s only in his late 20s, but his ribs poke out under a thin veneer of skin as he gently smiles at the photographer who is memorializing him.
"He’s dying," King said. "His body is ravaged by malaria. All he can do is weave baskets."
Another photographer might have been overly sentimental in that situation, but King captured these images with the eye of a photojournalist and the sensibilities of an artist. The dying man remains proud even as his muscles atrophy from disease.
Another stunning piece of photojournalism-art is the photograph of two girls from the village of Nanong Yai. That part of Laos is situated near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, an area that was heavily bombarded by the U.S. during the Vietnam war. The girls in the photograph are sitting on what at first appears to be a metal trough used to grow a vegetable garden – it’s actually a cluster bomb canister that was dropped during the war.
"The canister would hold more than 200 cluster bombs the size of tennis balls," King said. "There are thousands of unexploded ordnances in the area today."
These two chilling images, grouped together with more traditional portraits of villagers who live in the mountains of Southeast Asia, form an impressive collection from an undeniably sensitive photographer.
These delicate prints all represent life-altering moments to King, and serve as a reminder that there is much to appreciate in the people we share the world with. |
