Vanishing Tibet

Author: Conant & Steinmann

$39.95

Over the past ten years photographers Danny Conant and Catherine Steinmann made several journeys to Tibet intending to experience firsthand the magical quality that draws pilgrims the world over to this land of deep spirituality and immeasurable beauty. Instead, to their infinite dismay, they discovered a Tibet whose soul is gradually disappearing. The loss is pervasive—cultural, environmental, economic, religious—and seemingly inexorable.

Vanishing Tibet is about the recent changes that have befallen this captive land. A massive influx of Chinese immigrants, arriving via the newly constructed Beijing-Lhasa Railway, has quickly displaced many city dwellers from their very homes and jobs. The countryside has also suffered: rampant deforestation, unregulated mining, and poorly planned farming have wreaked a terrible toll on Tibet's delicate ecosystem. Through their photographs, Conant and Steinmann seek to record this disappearing culture. Yet their work transcends simple documentation. The artists developed stunningly creative and innovative techniques that meaningfully relate medium to subject matter. Images of religious life are transferred to metal and molded into the shape of Tibetan prayer wheels; images of the land and people are printed on Asian paper and hung like Tibetan prayer flags; images of monastery offering candles glow after being dipped into an encaustic wax; and, in an invocation of the Tibetan tangka, photo montages are transferred to scrolls of painted fabric. These inventive techniques not only dramatically underscore the context of the images, they also produce gorgeously nuanced works of art that pay homage to a vanishing Tibet.

Catherine Steinmann has twenty-five years of professional experience as a portrait and travel photographer specializing today in digital photography and multimedia art. Her books celebrating the late months of a woman’s pregnancy are hailed as a crowning achievement of its genre. Catherine’s work figures in major permanent collections. She also has exhibited in solo and group shows across the world. She is very actively involved in two women’s photography groups and has been honored in 2006 for supporting the work of women photographers.

Catherine is also a coveted panelist and teacher and a dedicated participant in visual workshops worldwide. Her travels took her to Ireland, Russia, China, Tibet, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Ecuador, Israel, India, Peru, Czech Republic and Turkey.

Danny Conant is a Washington D.C. area fine art photographer whose work has appeared in many national publications. Her specialty is photographing figures, then she uses a number of alternative processes to produce her beautiful imagery; platinum, silver gelatin, Polaroid emulsion transfers and beyond the digital prints.

Retiring from teaching so she could fully immerse herself in her photography, Conant has studied photography and printmaking. Her studies have allowed her to work with Ralph Gibson, Olivia Parker, Elizabeth Opalenik, Greg Gorman, and Joyce Tenneson.

The view through Conant’s lens exposes the world of a traveler whose witness to provocative sensuous images of figures that are at once earthly and ethereal. Her imagery always respond the sensual, tactile surfaces of a print and one of the first things she thinks about are "does that picture make me want to touch it?" The transition from traditional photography to her current artistic process results in mixed media works that are both visually and physically dimensional. The art works now having a very tactile quality, drawing the viewer into the surface.

Conant’s extensive travels have taken her to the far and near east. Multiple trips to China and Tibet have allowed her to delve further into the spirit and culture of the regions.