I had already visited an exhibition by Liu Feiyue in Leiden reported here, and this gentleman is clearly not one to sit still: he is now showing again, this time at Sijthoff, again in Leiden, under the title “On the Earth, photos of West China”. And what a marvellous journey through Tibet it is. His photographs take us into the everyday lives of ordinary people, working, walking, ploughing, going about their daily routines, surrounded by some incredible landscapes. There is a simplicity to Liu’s images that makes them particularly engaging. Nothing seems forced; instead, Liu Feiyue is a discreet witness and he allows the people and the places to speak for themselves. The traditions, the clothing, the gestures and the landscape all come together to create a very intimate portrait of Tibet. One photograph in particular stayed with me: a woman carrying a large jar of water on her back. There is something incredibly simple and powerful about the image, the weight of the jar on the bent back of the woman walking becomes almost the weight of everyday life itself. Of course, the word Tibet comes with a heavy load of its own. But, at the same time, seeing these photographs brought me somewhere much more personal and innocent: back to my first reading of Tintin au Tibet. I was reminded of the sense of adventure, mystery and discovery that Hergé’s album(s) planted in my imagination as a child. Maybe that is what I enjoyed most about Liu Feiyue’s photographs: they allowed me to travel to Tibet in two directions at once, towards a real place part of China, with its people, landscapes and traditions, and back into the Tibet that had existed in my childhood imagination.
