Freeing the Fish

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The Tibetans in Lhasa do not eat or catch fish, but the Han Chinese population does. The Tibetans instead go to the market to buy the fish to set them free. The whole fishing economy however has gotten a bit out of hand with the Tibetans now by far being the best customers at the fish market and the Han Chinese vendors catering for them by keeping the fish alive in large basins and selling big bags with water and added oxygen so the fish can be kept alive during the transport back to the river. Where some kilometers down river… well, you get the picture.

I have visited Tibet many times, and the more often I went the more interested I became in the country, the people, the Buddhism and above all, all the changes taking place in Tibet. Tibet has in the last 10 years changed from a rather traditional nomadic, agricultural and monastic society into a modern society. How the new and the old interact, collide or in some instances just live in parallel worlds doesn’t cease to fascinate me.

In the book ‘Freeing the Fish, progress and impermanence in modern day Tibet’, I bring together my photography work in Tibet from the last 10 years and I show the changes I saw happening in that period: The rapidly expanding cities and the city life, the new growing monasteries, the life of the nomads and the farmers in a changing environment (climate, mines, dams and resettlements).

The book will have a hard cover, around 220 pages with 140 photo’s of which 50 spreads and some background stories.

‘Freeing the Fish’ is one of the stories included in the book and a nice metaphor of many of the other developments in Tibet as well.

From now on I will keep you updated on the book publishing process. You can already have a peek of the book on my website. If you would like to be added to my mailing list or if you like to pre-order the book please email me or leave a comment on this post.