Exhibitions
The Art of Travel
An exploration of Central and Southeastern Asia through the lens of Dorset-based photographer Chris Hilton.
An exploration of Central and Southeastern Asia through the lens of Dorset-based photographer Chris Hilton.
Chris’s approach to the art of travel, as visitors will quickly appreciate, depends on his focus on the realities of life encountered, rather than travel brochure promises. As Chris puts it, “So much of the modern travel experience revolves around expectation (white sand and palm trees, the rural idyll, cultural highlights or fine dining) that whilst our time and imagination is given over to dreaming, the realities of the travel itself are given little or no consideration.”
“And it is there,” he continues, “amongst the traffic jams and the flies, the smoke, street food and sweat shops, barbers, buffalo, rats, lizards, chickens and street-side snooker tables, temples and televised cock fighting, dogs defecating, kids peeing, bells, neon, scrap yards, spring rolls, politics, rice pudding and ring worm: it is there, in the cracks of an elaborately woven dream, where I feel most at home.”
“The art of travel,” Chris concludes,” is to find somewhere to get that zip fixed, or to get a watch battery, to go to the doctor, or to get a haircut. In other words, it exists in the cracks where our imagination failed to go. We need to let reality wash over us in all its messy, uncomfortable glory without the hindrance of expectation. It is then that I find my eyes are truly open. For me, travel is about being fully immersed in that 1/125th of a second, alive to a shadow, a colour, a glimpse, and if that is the case, then I find myself travelling as much in my home town as I do in pastures new because with the right eyes, it’s always new!”
Chris’s approach to the art of travel, as visitors will quickly appreciate, depends on his focus on the realities of life encountered, rather than travel brochure promises. As Chris puts it, “So much of the modern travel experience revolves around expectation (white sand and palm trees, the rural idyll, cultural highlights or fine dining) that whilst our time and imagination is given over to dreaming, the realities of the travel itself are given little or no consideration.”
“And it is there,” he continues, “amongst the traffic jams and the flies, the smoke, street food and sweat shops, barbers, buffalo, rats, lizards, chickens and street-side snooker tables, temples and televised cock fighting, dogs defecating, kids peeing, bells, neon, scrap yards, spring rolls, politics, rice pudding and ring worm: it is there, in the cracks of an elaborately woven dream, where I feel most at home.”
“The art of travel,” Chris concludes,” is to find somewhere to get that zip fixed, or to get a watch battery, to go to the doctor, or to get a haircut. In other words, it exists in the cracks where our imagination failed to go. We need to let reality wash over us in all its messy, uncomfortable glory without the hindrance of expectation. It is then that I find my eyes are truly open. For me, travel is about being fully immersed in that 1/125th of a second, alive to a shadow, a colour, a glimpse, and if that is the case, then I find myself travelling as much in my home town as I do in pastures new because with the right eyes, it’s always new!”
CREDIT
