The Korean Environmental Foundation ‘Green Festival’ is holding an exhibition of wonderful photographs by Japanese-American photographer Michael Yamashita, right outside of Seoul City Hall. It’s open 24 hours a day until the end of October, and the photos are lit up at night - a truly wonderful time to see them.
The photos depict the journey Yamashita made in following Marco Polo’s footsteps across Asia from Italy to China and back. I couldn’t have put it better than the Visit Seoul website:
The pictures are displayed with detailed political, economical, geographical, and environmental information of the pictures. In addition, visitors are able to feel as if they are actually traveling along the Silk Road as the pictures are displayed in the order of Marco Polo’s journey. A DVD booth on the exhibition site screens a documentary of Michael Yamashita’s travels as he traces the route of Marco Polo’s journey. The exhibition is divided into three sections ??? from Venice to China, Marco Polo in China, and The Return Journey. Yamashita is visiting Seoul during the exhibition period and meet with his fans.
Many, if not all, of the photographs can be seen at the Green Festival homepage, but they look much better on 2.4m by 1.8m reprints. There are also books and postcards of the photos for sale (which is just as well, because the roaming staff forbid the taking of any photos of the photos), and they are very reasonably priced, compared to my experience of similar exhibitions in my own country.
UPDATE: a very nice flash presentation about the journey can be viewed here. Yamishita has a rich, deep voice that makes for easy listening.
Furthermore, he has his own website with a slideshow presentation.
2 Comments
Damn, that trip sounds awesome!
Environment?…Zzzzzzzzz