Ashes and Snow Traveling Exhibit in LA with Incredible photos/films of animals & people (4/06)

”Ashes and Snow” at the Nomadic Museum: Have Building, Will Travel 

 

Open to the public. $15 admission includes three continuous screenings.  One of them is 1 hour in the middle main room and the other 2 are 9 minutes each.

Special group, school rates.  Recommended: South Beach Parking Lot ($5) located at

2030 Bernard Way

with shuttles. Through May 14, 2006. 7: 00am to sunset.

The imposing rusted train-cars of the Nomadic Museum neighboring the Santa Monica pier sit like a giant’s toy left on the beach, turning the head of every driver zooming past on

Pacific Coast Highway

.  Though touted in local magazine ads and on street banners, nothing prepares visitors for the stirring large scale experience inside.

 

Inside the museum, internationally renowned photographer, Gregory Colbert’s one-man show displays 100 images of people communing with jungle animals, the most astonishing of which are whales and elephants on land and under water.   Colbert captured his still and moving images in 33 expeditions that took place over a 13-year period in Burma, India and the waters off Tonga. The exquisite people photographer in his natural work include Burmese monks, trance dancers and himself.  He describes his art as, “a loving exploration into the nature of animals in their natural habitat as they interact with human beings.”  His pictures illustrate the ideal outcome in the legend of flying elephants in the sky forming the earth, also depicted in the exhibit program.

 

Inside the museum, a wide wooden-plank runway guides visitors through two separate areas of Colbert’s photographs as ethereal music plays overhead.  The huge photographs mounted on Japanese rice paper are suspended by steel wires to float in the air.  They are spaced out between giant paper-tube columns that help support the roof made out of tent-like fabric.  Over 6000 river stones flanking the runway add to the organic and tranquil feeling of the space.  Inset lights high up and slits of daylight between the cars provide the only illumination…  This plus the mobile  architecture somehow makes visitors feel encapsulated in a comfortably warm and timeless eternal space even though a look up can reveal a rainy, windy spring sky overhead.  These carts were built for this temporary exhibit and will all be packed up and brought down when they leave and take the exhibit to other destinations.

 

The sepia tone images of man and animal in the art installation inspire a palpable calm and excitement at the same time, lending to meditation and leisure so allow at least two hours for the experience plus more to read all of the information about the building on huge panels outside. 

 

 In addition to 100 still images, the show includes two 9-minute films and an hour film narrated by Laurence Fishburne—showing people dancing with elephants and interacting with other animals.  Viewers of all ages stare mesmerized for up to an hour at the three continuous, captivating films while seated on large and backless stools resembling tree trunk stumps.  The underwater dance of man and whale alone is breathtaking and unbelievable enough in its beauty and length to make the museum visit worthwhile.

 

Cutting-edge Japanese architect Shigeru Ban designed the organic mobile museum out of 148 empty railroad car containers stacked in a self-supporting grid.  The Nomadic Museum totals 45,000-sq.-ft. in space and is made of recyclable and reusable materials: steel cargo containers for the walls, pressed paper tea bags for a hand-made curtain, paper tubing for the roof and columns.  The used railroad containers purposely honor Colbert’s love of “things that age.” It takes six weeks to ship the structure one railroad car at a time and two months to rebuild.  The local group of docents are happy to answer all questions about the structure and the works.  More information and a sample of the installation and film can be found at: www.ashesandsnow.org

 

Colbert was inspired, and funded, by his one-man show in Venice to share these images with the world.  The first stop was New York, and future visits include Beijing, Tokyo and Paris. One of our companions remarked upon leaving the show, “I loved this touching exhibit so much but I could never describe it.”  This would please Colbert.  In his words, “People need to restore their sense of awe.”  And he has definitely succeeded at helping them do this.