Artistic Exploration

Photographer Stacey Irvin, a 1998 graduate from Vanderbilt, journeyed through China, Tibet, Nepal and Pakistan over a four-month period, beginning in spring 2000. Winner of the Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award in March of 1999, Irvin received a $16,000 grant to use toward a year of travel and artistic exploration. Many of the photographs from her travels will be featured in an exhibit at the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery Jan. 11 Feb. 1, 2001. What follows is an abridged, first-hand account of the first two months of her trek across Asia.

I am in Taipei. I just endured a 13-and-a-half-hour flight from Los Angeles and the sun is rising over an overcast and humid day. As I was leaving the U.S. to embark on this life dream, an acute fear bewildered me; the world was suddenly a scary place. What was I getting myself into?

Hong Kong is unreal! It's like the whole world crammed onto one beautiful, mountainous island with people everywhere from all over the world. The boats in the harbor never stop coming and going. My friend John Guider, a professional photographer and artist from Nashville, is traveling with me for the first month.

I am now in Mainland China. John and I entered China via train to Guangzhou. It is so polluted with smog everywhere and with 6 million people, the traffic was like a turbulent ocean. Taxis, buses, cars and motorbikes weave amongst people on foot and bicycle and carts. I am definitely aware of being in a communist country. While cell phones ring all around me, it still feels like I've gone back in time 50 to 100 years.

The cell phones have all but disappeared for now. We took a Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo today. Spectacular scenery. The limestone formations are just like the paintings I've seen, especially in the misty rain and clouds that have accompanied us. We are now south of Guilin in Yangshuo and the faces, vehicles, homes, markets and food are just so vivid, and different. Unfortunately, I saw what I'd hoped to avoid: dogs in cages waiting to be sold for dinner.

Today we arrived in Dali from Kunming and set out for an island on Lake Urhai that has a fishing village. We ended up on the wrong boat in a tourist-trap temple and managed to escape down a road that led us to a priceless experience. We saw a boat and family on shore, and ended up helping bring in their net and spent the rest of the day with them until we had dinner at their house, eating the day's catch. It was moving, exhilarating, frustrating, uplifting, humorous and genuine. I did what I love to do and what I've made a priority: live on both sides of the camera. I live for these experiences. This is what my life must be. I must use my photography, my curiosity and my energy to do some good for people. How can I take these experiences and help people?

Now I'm on the famed "Silk Route." After John left to return to the U.S., I took a train from Xian west toward a town called Tianshui and then met up with a guide and driver for the trip to Xiahe. In a town called Gangu I visited a Buddhist shrine on the side of a cliff. It is home to the second largest Buddha sculpture in Gansu Province. The fun part was meeting two old men who invited me for tea and let me photograph them. At first they were quite nervous because they thought that I wanted to be in the photos with them. Apparently they still harbor fears from the Cultural Revolution. Having a photo with a foreigner could get them into real trouble back then.

Now I'm in Xiahe, home of the Tibetan Labrang Monastery (yellow hat sect). Pilgrims come from all over to complete clockwise circuits around every holy site in the huge monastery. During my first full day in Xiahe, I was given a guided tour of the Labrang Monastery. Oh, the color, the detail, the beauty of the dimly lit halls! Yak butter lamps glow under altars to the many forms of Buddha and other leaders of the yellow hat sect. The Lamas are sweet, peaceful, serious and yet playful. You can hear Lamas chatting or chanting with their deep guttural voices throughout the halls.

During my second free day, I chose to go with a local Hui (Chinese Muslim) guide/restaurant owner out to the grasslands where the semi-nomadic Tibetans live. This was a far less tourist area with beautiful scenery. The first camp we stopped at consisted of several mud-walled homes with mud corrals for the animals. Two young Tibetan men greeted us and led us to one of their homes while protecting us from several very large barking dogs. The Tibetans are known for owning fierce guard dogs. The young man's home consisted of one room about six-by-six‚ and a small storage hallway with shelves. The room is where he and his wife and daughter sleep and do all of their cooking. The floor was raised so that they could burn dried yak dung underneath for warmth.

After several others joined us, I got out a small Polaroid sticker camera. They loved seeing the images appear right before their eyes. Having this camera has been so helpful in allowing folks to open up to my photographing them.

From there we drove a long while past many other Tibetan encampments and arrived at the secluded Moa Monastery. This monastery was even older than the Labrang Monastery and had been pretty much demolished during the Cultural Revolution. Today there are around 200 monks in residence and a gradual recovery continues. I asked a monk in his late-60s about that time period, and the look on his face said it all. He said that they do not speak about it, and added only that they were forced to memorize something along the lines of, "there is no god but the Communist Party."

I met a couple from San Francisco -- the first Americans I've run into in Mainland China -- and we made plans to hike in the Sand Mountains one night under the full moon. Oh, it was so incredible! I felt like I was on another planet, or in heaven, or someplace surreal. The air wasn't too cold, the wind had died down and the sand was cool and soft. The moon was clear and high in the sky with an occasional passing cloud. Closer to the horizon, the dunes faded into a misty layer of settling sandy air. We climbed to the highest peak nearby and sat in the sand staring off into the distance.

Stacey Irvin spent another two months traveling the region with various companions. Her travels included treks into Tibet, Nepal and Pakistan where she met and photographed hundreds of persons and places.

"After this four-month journey, I am still wrestling with interpreting the larger meaning of this experience," she wrote after her return to the United States. "I want my experience to have an outward meaning. People should realize how strong we are and how much we have in common as people. The love and strength I've witnessed across cultures, religions, nationalities and ages is a priceless boost to one's sense of humanity. We live in a world of constant misconceptions, assumptions and inflated fears. It only takes sitting in the presence of an 80-year-old, proud grandparent or looking into a child's big eyes as she is gently rocked in a makeshift cradle to realize this. I've had more than 100 cups of tea with people who spoke little to no English, and we were each other's company despite the presence of vast differences." *

A more complete account of Stacey Irvin's journey appeared as a three-part series beginning in the November 2000 issue of Women's VU newsletter.