 |
| Photo © Kares Le Roy-All Rights Reserved |
The word عشایر (its English transliteration is Ashayer) is Persian for nomads, and is the title for Kares Le Roy's extensive photographic body of work on the nomads who inhabit the landscape of Persia and Central Asia.
Inspired by an initial trip to the Asian continent, Kares Le Roy returned to the East traveling on a 16-months journey driving a van, and immersed himself into a tribal world. He shared the daily life and seasonal migration of different ethnic groups who live on in Persia and Central Asia. Ashayer is the result of an expedition from France to Afghanistan via Iran, and a testimony of vibrant and remote cultures that might soon disappear. He traveled in the Wakhan Corridor, the narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from Pakistan, which was arbitrarily drawn in 1895 to act as buffer between Russia and the British Empire.
Bakhtiaris, Qashqais, Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz are the evocative names of some of the nomadic tribes who were encountered by Kares on his long and arduous voyage since he left Paris in a converted Volkswagen van for Afghanistan in May 2014. He had no sponsors nor promoters, and a tiny budget. All he had were his cameras, some books and his spirit of adventure. You can follow some of this backstory on his blog.
Inspired by an initial trip to the Asian continent, Kares Le Roy returned to the East traveling on a 16-months journey driving a van, and immersed himself into a tribal world. He shared the daily life and seasonal migration of different ethnic groups who live on in Persia and Central Asia. Ashayer is the result of an expedition from France to Afghanistan via Iran, and a testimony of vibrant and remote cultures that might soon disappear. He traveled in the Wakhan Corridor, the narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from Pakistan, which was arbitrarily drawn in 1895 to act as buffer between Russia and the British Empire.
Bakhtiaris, Qashqais, Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz are the evocative names of some of the nomadic tribes who were encountered by Kares on his long and arduous voyage since he left Paris in a converted Volkswagen van for Afghanistan in May 2014. He had no sponsors nor promoters, and a tiny budget. All he had were his cameras, some books and his spirit of adventure. You can follow some of this backstory on his blog.
