2022

Waiting for Dalai Lama

Ladakh, Zanskar Valley - Himalayan Regions of India

This project represents what I like most, which is traveling and documenting real situations and the diversity of people I meet, in a spontaneous way. Last summer I rented a motorbike and traveled through the valleys and villages of the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh. By pure coincidence I happened upon those places in conjunction with the visit of the Supreme Master of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, to the communities of believers in the Zanskar valley, finding myself involved in reception ceremonies and preparations as well as in the midst of hundreds of pilgrims who had come from monasteries and remote villages, after days of walking, to pay homage to their spiritual leader.

Thus was born in me the desire to document this moment and portray in a spontaneous and genuine way, the monks and ordinary people as they expressed their passion, waiting and hoping that the Dalai Lama could pass right by them, fulfilling the desire to meet him at least once in their life.

In the eyes of many, I read the hope, joy and tension of waiting, while those who were unable to go to places of transit had to make do with the various cardboard cutout, depicting the Master, placed on the altars of some prayer rooms.

Avanti
Avanti

No more identity