Zarathustrianism - From Sports Night to the Silk Road
Photographer brings exposure of oppressed religious natives in China
It¹s a long way from the gymnasium at Oceanside Middle School to the Taklamakan desert in China. But that¹s how far Lisa Ross¹s love of photography has taken her. Ross started out taking snapshots of fellow students during Sports Night at OMS, and now she captures images of relics of religious natives in the desert sands in Xinjiang province north of Tibet. These photographs were most recently displayed in a March-to-May exhibit at the Nelson Hancock Gallery in Brooklyn (www.nelsonhancockgallery.com), entitled "Traces of Devotion: Images of Sufi Burial Sites in Central Asia," which was reviewed favorably in the New York Times on April 21. Ross was 12 when her mother, Susan, allowed her to use her sophisticated camera while at Old Westbury Gardens. ³That day when I first used a camera, I knew that this was my life,² Ross said. ³I think that¹s because I had a very acute awareness of the world outside me. I was very visual. My mom was a painter and my dad a writer.² Throughout her adolescence, Ross would take her camera further distances, from her neighborhood to OMS and Oceanside High School to Central Park to London. Fast forward to 2001, when she visited Algeria and Egypt and took to making photographs in the Sahara and Sinai. A year later, Ross had planned to return to the Middle East when her friend, Bennett Walsh, who produced "Kill Bill," invited her on the set of the movie in Beijing. While in China, Ross read in a travel guide a single sentence that inspired her to take a solo 48-hour train ride to Xinjiang province: "Ancient city ruins and the desert landscape." To Ross, reading about the Taklamakan desert had ³a very similar feeling about it as north Africa,² she said, ³Š and I was interested in iconic imagery.²Nearly half of Xinjiang¹s population consists of Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking people who practice a hybrid of various religions, primarily Islam but also Buddhism, Zarathustrianism, Shamanism and Christianity. "It was kind of scary because the terrain was intense and no one spoke English," Ross said about her arrival on her first of three trips to the region. " Š I had a dictionary to point out words to people, but it was still scary.²She eventually hired a Chinese guide who drove her around the perimeter of the Taklamakan desert on the Silk Road. In addition to the colorful desert relics and burial sites she photographed, Ross took black-and-whites of the dusty ancient trade route and its various modes of transport, from donkeys to bicycles to 18-wheelers.She soon became interested in the Uyghurs¹ lives under their communist government, in which their freedom to worship is controlled. In Xinjiang, for example, people under 18 and government employees are prohibited from attending mosques, and businessmen can be arrested if they close down shop during Ramadan. Moreover, censorship of television and news is routine. In 1999, a Uyghur woman, Rebiya Kadeer, was sentenced to eight years in jail for mailing local newspaper articles to her husband, a critic of the Chinese government, in Washington D.C. , but was released in 2005. While Uyghurs suffer similar political oppression as their neighbors, the Tibetans, and while there are about 10 million Uyghurs compared to 6 million Tibetans, they are a people little known outside of China. Further, because of their separatist acts for independence against their own government, Uyghurs were placed on the U.S. list of terrorists groups after 9/11. "The Uyghurs don't have a spokesperson like the Dali Lama," Ross said. "Š If there¹s any way I can help get more people familiar with the Uyghurs so they know they exist, that would be a great thing.² In the summer of 2004, Ross returned to Xinjiang with a French historian of central Asian Islam, Alexandre Papas, and the following May she made her third visit with a Uyghur scholar and folklorist. Ross is collaborating with them both on a book, ³Traces of Devotion,² which will focus on the Uyghurs¹ cult of saints and feature her photos of the markings of pilgrims in the Taklamakan desert. Ross hopes to return to the region this summer.When she returns to thinking of her childhood and her start in photography, the 1982 graduate of OHS recalls the learning disability she endured throughout her school years from which photography provided an outlet. ³Because of my learning disability, most things that I did, like sports, were frustrating,² she said. ³In photography, I was able to develop myself personally without competing. I had a really hard time with competition with my learning disability.² "She really became happy in high school, when she became the school photographer,² mom Susan said. ³She took the pictures at all the shows, she did the yearbook in her senior year, and she really blossomed then.² Ross's work even then, of family and friends to far-away lands, reflects the photographer she grew into. Her bread and butter is her photography studio in Manhattan (www.lisarossphotography.com), in which weddings and the like are her specialty, and she exhibits her other work far and wide, from America to Algeria to Amsterdam. The later exhibit featured her close-ups of hand-made shower heads in the gas chambers of Mauthausen, Austria's largest concentration camp, in 2002. And before her exhibit at the Nelson Hancock Gallery, Ross had her images of the Uyghurs' burials sites displayed at the Daniel Silverstein Gallery in Chelsea.Ross earned her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and her masters in fine arts from Columbia University, after which she founded the photography and art program at the all gay and lesbian Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan, where she taught from 1989 to 1998. "That was a unique program because it involved these urban kids dealing with their sexuality, and it was a great experience because they were really bursting to express themselves,² Ross said. ³ Š The best part of it was watching my students find something they love around a creative art form.² Ross¹s mother and father, Ron, find satisfaction in the fact that their daughter has followed that same path. "Lisa had a hard time in school learning, writing, reading, and with sports,² Susan said. "So, we're more thrilled with her accomplishments than the parents of a kid who sailed through school. She followed her heart, what made her happy, and became a success at that." Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
By JOSEPH KELLARD
May 18, 2006
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16656548&BRD=1601&PAG=461&dept_id=479857&rfi=6
It¹s a long way from the gymnasium at Oceanside Middle School to the Taklamakan desert in China. But that¹s how far Lisa Ross¹s love of photography has taken her. Ross started out taking snapshots of fellow students during Sports Night at OMS, and now she captures images of relics of religious natives in the desert sands in Xinjiang province north of Tibet. These photographs were most recently displayed in a March-to-May exhibit at the Nelson Hancock Gallery in Brooklyn (www.nelsonhancockgallery.com), entitled "Traces of Devotion: Images of Sufi Burial Sites in Central Asia," which was reviewed favorably in the New York Times on April 21. Ross was 12 when her mother, Susan, allowed her to use her sophisticated camera while at Old Westbury Gardens. ³That day when I first used a camera, I knew that this was my life,² Ross said. ³I think that¹s because I had a very acute awareness of the world outside me. I was very visual. My mom was a painter and my dad a writer.² Throughout her adolescence, Ross would take her camera further distances, from her neighborhood to OMS and Oceanside High School to Central Park to London. Fast forward to 2001, when she visited Algeria and Egypt and took to making photographs in the Sahara and Sinai. A year later, Ross had planned to return to the Middle East when her friend, Bennett Walsh, who produced "Kill Bill," invited her on the set of the movie in Beijing. While in China, Ross read in a travel guide a single sentence that inspired her to take a solo 48-hour train ride to Xinjiang province: "Ancient city ruins and the desert landscape." To Ross, reading about the Taklamakan desert had ³a very similar feeling about it as north Africa,² she said, ³Š and I was interested in iconic imagery.²Nearly half of Xinjiang¹s population consists of Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking people who practice a hybrid of various religions, primarily Islam but also Buddhism, Zarathustrianism, Shamanism and Christianity. "It was kind of scary because the terrain was intense and no one spoke English," Ross said about her arrival on her first of three trips to the region. " Š I had a dictionary to point out words to people, but it was still scary.²She eventually hired a Chinese guide who drove her around the perimeter of the Taklamakan desert on the Silk Road. In addition to the colorful desert relics and burial sites she photographed, Ross took black-and-whites of the dusty ancient trade route and its various modes of transport, from donkeys to bicycles to 18-wheelers.She soon became interested in the Uyghurs¹ lives under their communist government, in which their freedom to worship is controlled. In Xinjiang, for example, people under 18 and government employees are prohibited from attending mosques, and businessmen can be arrested if they close down shop during Ramadan. Moreover, censorship of television and news is routine. In 1999, a Uyghur woman, Rebiya Kadeer, was sentenced to eight years in jail for mailing local newspaper articles to her husband, a critic of the Chinese government, in Washington D.C. , but was released in 2005. While Uyghurs suffer similar political oppression as their neighbors, the Tibetans, and while there are about 10 million Uyghurs compared to 6 million Tibetans, they are a people little known outside of China. Further, because of their separatist acts for independence against their own government, Uyghurs were placed on the U.S. list of terrorists groups after 9/11. "The Uyghurs don't have a spokesperson like the Dali Lama," Ross said. "Š If there¹s any way I can help get more people familiar with the Uyghurs so they know they exist, that would be a great thing.² In the summer of 2004, Ross returned to Xinjiang with a French historian of central Asian Islam, Alexandre Papas, and the following May she made her third visit with a Uyghur scholar and folklorist. Ross is collaborating with them both on a book, ³Traces of Devotion,² which will focus on the Uyghurs¹ cult of saints and feature her photos of the markings of pilgrims in the Taklamakan desert. Ross hopes to return to the region this summer.When she returns to thinking of her childhood and her start in photography, the 1982 graduate of OHS recalls the learning disability she endured throughout her school years from which photography provided an outlet. ³Because of my learning disability, most things that I did, like sports, were frustrating,² she said. ³In photography, I was able to develop myself personally without competing. I had a really hard time with competition with my learning disability.² "She really became happy in high school, when she became the school photographer,² mom Susan said. ³She took the pictures at all the shows, she did the yearbook in her senior year, and she really blossomed then.² Ross's work even then, of family and friends to far-away lands, reflects the photographer she grew into. Her bread and butter is her photography studio in Manhattan (www.lisarossphotography.com), in which weddings and the like are her specialty, and she exhibits her other work far and wide, from America to Algeria to Amsterdam. The later exhibit featured her close-ups of hand-made shower heads in the gas chambers of Mauthausen, Austria's largest concentration camp, in 2002. And before her exhibit at the Nelson Hancock Gallery, Ross had her images of the Uyghurs' burials sites displayed at the Daniel Silverstein Gallery in Chelsea.Ross earned her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and her masters in fine arts from Columbia University, after which she founded the photography and art program at the all gay and lesbian Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan, where she taught from 1989 to 1998. "That was a unique program because it involved these urban kids dealing with their sexuality, and it was a great experience because they were really bursting to express themselves,² Ross said. ³ Š The best part of it was watching my students find something they love around a creative art form.² Ross¹s mother and father, Ron, find satisfaction in the fact that their daughter has followed that same path. "Lisa had a hard time in school learning, writing, reading, and with sports,² Susan said. "So, we're more thrilled with her accomplishments than the parents of a kid who sailed through school. She followed her heart, what made her happy, and became a success at that." Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
By JOSEPH KELLARD
May 18, 2006
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16656548&BRD=1601&PAG=461&dept_id=479857&rfi=6
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