Monday night we will be pouring Mongolian salt tea and offering traditional Mongo food Aruul (dried curd rich in vitamins) followed by vodka. Feel free to drift in for a taste of Mongolia. Ravenscourt or Hammersmith tube.

The journey continues at the Mongolian Culture Centre. Preliminary openings from Wednesday.

State Palace, Ulaanbaatar, Outer Mongolia, autumn 2007.    The Vice President of Mongolia M.Enkhsaikhan displays photographs of yeti footprints he found atop Mount Monkhkhairkhan.

When asked whether he believed the yeti walked on all fours Enkhsaikhan shot me a puzzled glance.

There are several framers and several shops selling frames, or you can make them yourself.  To communicate a rustic setting such as the wilds of Northern Mongolia, what better framing than rustic.

This means the photograph is given as much natural life as possible, it is not encased in false surroundings which exemplify wealth or attempt to communicate any such  intention.    Would a yeti be best seen in a specialist moulded perspex raised frame or a worn Victorian wooden one picked up in a junk shop?

Framing options are significant and expensive otherwise, so I am looking for a good alternative which doesn t lessen the quality of the photos.

Use the awareness constructively and the photos can be hung in any way you desire.  The smaller the better, the bigger the best. The middle of the road the most balanced.  The options are endless. The layout essential.

Foreground – Orosvoi; master of storytelling, wife and son. Background  – summer cabin, edge of Eastern Taiga, Khovsgul Aimag, Fall 2007.

Above, a heavyweight wrestler prepares himself in the Irish Cultrual Centre Hall. Below, elders sit behind ceremonial food and drinks which are gifted to fighters as they win rounds.

Between rounds the wrestlers chat about life in London and Ulanbaataar.

The Mongolian New Year Celebrations were held in the Irish Centre, Hammersmith today. A display of traditional wrestling and folk music accompanied by plates of meat and drinks created an atmosphere seldom experienced in London.

Two years ago I was in Mongolia with a couple of  friends. Relationships went from good to bad to good again and then…as they do, changed again. As is often the case with circumstances like these, something unique was born -  The almas.

We went to Mongolia with the aim of producing a film. We had never made a film before, but we’d been around the world travelling to remote places and documenting for a while and we had enough contacts to make a go of it.  We figured all you needed was a good eye and some heart. With that we threw $10 000 into the pot and bought a sony HD camera with a handle on top, a couple of mics and ten tapes. threw in some still cameras and a pile of notebooks and caught the underground out of Seoul, South Korea to the port of Incheon.

Twenty four hours later the boat arrived in Tianjin , China. A huge port with colossal cranes and other dockside apparatus. The rope that they winched down was as thick as a tree and men in white uniforms like something out of a sixties James Bond film scurried around organising the harbouring.   From tianjin we took a bus to Beijing and the next day caught a sleeper to Inner Mongolia. We crossed the Great Wall by night. I looked out at it from the window by the bed in the back of the bus.  The stars were shining above China that night.

By midnight we were in a wild outpost of a town. The bus had stopped to refuel in a seemingly endless dust blown darkness. Men lolled drunkenly at the tables. I smoked a cigarette, looked up at a sky as starry as ever I had seen, then got back in the bus for the final twelve hours to the border of Outer Mongolia – Zamyn Uud -  ‘Road’s Door.’

Shot near the Korean border in 2007, this formation of starlings were merging in waves above Daechuri in South Korea.  As the birds swooped over head at dusk I felt the sense of spine tingling wonder experienced when in communication with something  more powerful than one self.

We were photographing the landscape of international policy centred on an area of farmland and communities being reclaimed by the ROK authorities to create a strategic base for US Military forces.  Since the Korean War, South Korea has continued to be influenced by US global policy in contrast to the North who have taken a firm foothold in resisting 21st century globalisation and materialism.  

 The 38th Parrallel, the most heavily militarized border in the world, aka the demilitarized zone is a stark place representing a wide gulf in political thought.  A ridiculous line drawn up by dull minded fiends with little interest in villagers for whom rice production and a refreshing cup of makgeolli, the local korean tipple, are life.   

It is unfortunate for them that they were evicted from their family homes in order to perpetuate a divided peninsula and provide land for military.  They held out well against the demolishion with artists contributing sculptures and murals around the village it became a haunting installation on the frontline of international politics.    Huge wickermen marked the gateway through the fields to the village where three thousand armed korean police fought farmers with hoes and sickles in the fields in the summer of 2007.    Inside the village a large hall played host to a nightly candlelit vigil where Koreans with a history of protest continued to air their rights.

The demolition date was imminent and the art was not to survive for ever.   As they lit the candles two weeks before final demolition we stood on top of a roof where squatters have lived without running water and electricity for two years. There was a steel template of the Korean peninsula erected on a post on a far building, then the starlings arrived.   They flocked together in their thousands, swooping low in perfect synchronicity across the rice paddies. Moving in vortexes as their wings beat in unison at a precise distance from the next flier, never colliding.  An example of harmony if ever i have seen one.   Like a giant tongue, the flock unrolled across the village, diving, merging and coning into the most incredible organised display I have ever witnessed. I heard the Pyongyang  Games were the most impressive example of synchronicity in the world. These birds were pretty cool too. 

Before the earthquake 38% of Haiti’s 9 million population were under the age of 14 (CIA factbook 2009). It is now estimated that a staggering 1 million of the population are  orphaned children.

UNICEF PRESS RELEASE

We are extremely concerned about the situation of children in Haiti, many of whom have become separated from their families and caregivers. These children face increased risks of malnutrition and disease, trafficking, sexual exploitation and serious emotional trauma. The race to provide them with life-saving emergency food and medicine, safe shelter, protection, and care is underway.

UNICEF and its partners, including the Haitian Government, the Red Cross and Save the Children, are establishing safe spaces for children and the process of registering unaccompanied children has commenced.

UNICEF and partners are also providing food and supplies for orphanages in Port-au-Prince.

Every effort will be made to reunite children with their families. Only if that proves impossible, and after proper screening has been carried out, should permanent alternatives like adoption be considered by the relevant authorities.  Screening for international adoption for some Haitian children had been completed prior to the earthquake. Where this is the case, there are clear benefits to speeding up their travel to their new homes.

UNICEF joins with the Committee on the Rights of the Child, International Social Service and other concerned groups in calling on all those involved in relief efforts to ensure that they act in the best interests of children. What is needed now is life saving support and care for children in Haiti.