At the MAO in Turin, a photo exhibition on the nomads of Asia

From Sept. 7 to Oct. 14, the MAO-Museum of Oriental Art in Turin will mount the photographic exhibition "The Nomads of Asia. A journey thousands of kilometers long in the countries ofCentral and North Asia is the exhibition that will present to the public nearly 100 shots by Carla Parato Milone and Giorgio Milone, photographs dedicated to the daily life of the people who still practice nomadism.

Vivid images accompanied by a set of some collectibles including ancient Tibetan rugs, guides and saddles lent by the Battilossi Gallery in Turin, which will help to objectify the images in an engaging way and put them in a more precise context.

The exhibition itinerary presents in the first part shots dedicated to nomads in the Zagros Mountains regions of Iran and develops following the routes of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, India, the Himalayan regions, along the Mongolian grasslands, until reaching China and Siberia. In addition to the great displacements involving entire communities determined to dominate hostile spaces, the images tell stories of families and tribes, of collective efforts and individual experiences, feasts, moments of work and rest, women weaving and cooking, grazing herds and cradling children, men hunting with eagles, exchanging tokens of friendship, or tending with the whole family to animals and heavy labor.

Alongside the big stories there are the little stories, there is time to adorn one’s dwelling, to decorate it with embroidery and garlands, to dress sumptuous clothes, wear jewelry, take care of one’s appearance, play, joke with the little ones, and create wonders in wool and skins.
We will be transported on a long itinerary by the photographs, as descriptive as they are evocative, by the shots that tell of a social and economic organization created by man from the earliest times for the purpose of surviving and thriving in harsh or even extreme environmental conditions. A form of life, however, that is slowly disappearing in almost every region of the planet for cultural, political and climatic reasons, in favor of sedentarization and urbanization.

Asia’s nomads travel on foot and on horseback, by camel and sled, sometimes by boat, carrying tents, yurts and whatever they need to recompose life for family and community. From time immemorial, they have perpetuated the traditions of herding: day after day, time revolves around their animals that establish the rhythm of life and the passing of the seasons.
They stop in the grass, in the snow, at the foot of mountains, on the shores of lakes and seas, following tracks not indicated on a map or by any compass or sextant, handed down through the centuries only by words.

Great migrations of animals and men, endless horizons, in the dazzling light of the taiga of the Great North or in the deserts and among the flaming plateaus of Iran or Central Asia. Nomadism is the opposite of loneliness: there is no warmer form of hospitality than that received by a Nenet or Kyrgyz family, nothing more festive and wild than the gathering of tent peoples at festivals, religious ceremonies, horse races, wrestling or archery competitions. This journey through images meets our desire for purity, simplicity, and the absolute: concentrating, we will listen to the calls of animals, the ringing laughter of children, the whispers of women, the blowing of the wind, we will perceive the strong and pungent smells as well as the more delicate and domestic ones.

Ticket price: full price 10 €, reduced price 8 €, free for under 18 and Torino Piemonte Museums subscribers.
For all information you can call 39 011.4436927, send an email to info: mao@fondazionetorinomusei.it or visit www.maotorino.it.

Pictured: Horse in the Prairie, photo by Carla Parato Milone and Giorgio Milone

At the MAO in Turin, a photo exhibition on the nomads of Asia

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