One village in Bhutan
By Kim Honan
An exhibition featuring subsistence farming in a Bhutanese village has raised more than $600 in donations.
What makes this collection of 40 photos unique is that they were taken by 13 and 14-year-old girls who had never operated a camera before.
Bhutan is a country nestled between India and China in the Himalayas, where the local agriculture is produced mostly chemical and machinery-free.
Dungog resident Georgina Clark visited Dangchu in 2010 to help install solar lights at the local school, and then decided that on a return trip the following year she’d give the six girls an old film camera to document life in the rural village.
“I gave them brief instructions on the photographic subjects that I thought would be interesting to people here, but it was basically an opportunity for them to have some fun with the camera, and for us to get a privileged view of a small Bhutanese community.”
“When I installed the solar lights in 2010 we camped in the village area, but even so being that close to the community you still don’t have access to subjects like watching women doing the washing, or going into people’s homes and watching meal preparations, watching people milk cows and making butter and cheese, and also watching the kids interact amongst themselves in the school grounds.”