FACE TO FAITH | MOUNT KAILASH | TIBET

Samuel Zuder | Face To Faith | Mount Kailash | Tibet In the midst of the stony desert of the Changtang plateau, it towers up like a pyramid: the Mt. Kailash. The four religions of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Boens not only worship the most remote and difficult to access Kailash as holy mountain but also as the origin of the universe. Year after year, hundreds of believers set out for the exhausting pilgrimage to the Kailash and they circumambulate the mountain on a 54 kilometers long path – the so-called kora. Deeply religious pilgrims walk the path doing prostrations. It takes them about 2 – 4 weeks. A kora shall free them from sin. Buddhists believe that108 circumambulations lead towards enlightenment. Out of respect for its spiritual importance the Mount Kailash has never been climbed. In 1985, Reinhold Messner was authorized to climb it but he consciously decided against it. For this reason, the Mount Kailash is one of the rare untrodden places of our world. I wanted to show the same respect to the pilgrims and to the Mountain which means so much to them. The pilgrims should step in front of the camera like they had been on their way at the Kailash, without corrections to the clothes and without visible reaction to the camera. A series of iconic portraits came to life, which underlines the typical and the individual in the appearance of the Kailash pilgrim at the same time. The landscapes are metaphors for the encounter of the human and the divine aspect that gives this place its particular importance. On the landscape photos, the Mount Kailash seems to be melting in light, fog, mist and clouds where the pilgrims assume the seat of the gods, the hub of the world or just the origin of the universe. Samuel Zuder