August 21, 2003
Computer science professor sells photos to benefit charity
An exhibit and sale, opening Sept. 6, will feature the photography of UW Professor David Salesin. But the computer scientist isn’t looking to launch a second career. All the proceeds for sale of the work will go to the Central Asian Institute (http://www.ikat.org) to support its community-based programs in Central Asia.
That’s appropriate because the photos were taken in Central Asia — specifically, in Bhutan. Salesin went to Bhutan, a country in the Himalayas between India and Tibet, at the invitation of his friend Mike Hawley.
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“Mike is the founder of a nonprofit called Friendly Planet,” Salesin explained. “He is producing a series of books for children that describe what it’s like to live in different cultures, and his current project is a book called Growing Up in Bhutan.”
Salesin became one of the trip photographers, capturing the sights along the way in thousands of photographs, from which he’s culled two dozen for the exhibit.
The trip took place last December, and Salesin exhibited a few of the photos at Café Solstice in the University District when he got back. But it never occurred to him to sell photos until he was approached by Keith Pleas, the owner of a store called Fugio, which is located on Capitol Hill.
“Keith had seen the photos in the café and was very excited about them,” Salesin said. “He wanted to exhibit them in the store, which sells goods from the Himalayas, but when he started talking about sales, I said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to take any money for these.’ Then we started talking about a charitable donation.”
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Salesin calls the trip itself a “wonderful experience.” In addition to his friend Hawley, the traveling party included Choki Lhamo and Gyelsey Loday, two 13-year-old Bhutanese who had never been out of their villages, and Dorji, a 22-year-old first-year student at Sherubtse College (the only college in Bhutan). The group experienced a lot of the cultural and political life of the country, attending a tsechu (an annual religious festival held at a Buddhist monastery) and the National Day celebration in the capital.
“Bhutan is a very interesting country because of the contrasts,” Salesin said. “On the one hand it’s an extraordinarily traditional place. People wear the national dress and live the same way they’ve lived for hundreds of years. These festivals we went to are not performed for tourists; they’re for the Bhutanese people.
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“On the other hand, the Bhutanese are very open to new experiences. They’ve embraced the Internet, for example, and the government promotes very frank AIDS education.”
Salesin says that in retrospect, what stands out perhaps most about the trip is the close friendship he developed with Dorji. “He became, in effect, my kota, or younger brother,” Salesin explained. “We’ve stayed in touch by e-mail, and I hope to bring him here for a visit some day.”
Down to Earth, Close to Heaven: The People of Bhutan, as the exhibit is called, will be up until Nov. 1 at Fugio, 1507 Belmont Ave., between Pike and Pine. There will be an opening reception at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6.
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