About Imaging Tibet
Imaging Tibet is a group of young Tibetan students who are passionate about photography. Members of the project currently study at the English Training Program in the Nationalities’ Department of Qinghai Education College, Xining, Qinghai Province, China. There students take part in photographic workshops which provide them with the practical skills and technology to document life in their hometowns. Elena McKinlay and Andrew Grant, both teachers in the ETP, are the project’s current directors. However, we hope that the project will be self-sustainable in the not-too-distant future.
Since the project’s inception in March 2007, members have created a digital archive of hundreds of images focusing on the broad fields of:
Small-scale Development – where visual documentation of students’ development projects greatly increases the chance of their receiving funding, which in turn alleviates poverty in Tibetan communities.
Cultural Preservation – using photography to capture elements of Tibetan intangible heritage which are changing at an alarming rate.
Social Documentary – making small bodies of work describing life in rural Tibetan communities. This gives students a chance to tell their own communities’ stories, as they choose to.
Project Objectives
- To educate Tibetan students in photographic materials, camera techniques, media, computer skills, and methods of image dissemination.
- To create an archive of images both on film and in the digital realm. This will be locally stored.
- To produce an online collection of students’ images.
- To equip students to document and further extend their capacities as small-scale development project managers.
- To produce a book of students’ images.
What’s Next?
Our project of 15 members currently uses five automatic digital cameras and seven older, mostly faulty, film cameras. We have no funding to continue producing colour film images, which leaves us looking at a rather uncertain future. To continue training workshops and photographic assignments for at least ten students over the coming years, the project is urgently requesting funding to purchase:
- 4MP+ digital cameras
- a portable hard drive to store images and our website on
- a desktop computer on which to process images and short films
Without further support, Imaging Tibet will not be able to continue. Many valuable aspects of intangible Tibetan culture could be lost, possibly forever.