Nick Bogardus

We had Kim’s students’ photography exhibit last weekend. The three weeks leading up to it were hectic for Kim; full of selecting the photos, mounting the 254 photos, getting her students to name them, and writing a presentation she was to give at the cultural center an hour before the exhibit. Our apartment became a FEMA zone cluttered with cutting boards, foam board scraps, and boxes and bags of photos.

The end result was amazing though.

But, of course, it didn’t go as smoothly as planned - nothing here does. It seems any time there is a big event we’re doing or are apart of here, the cultural weirdness gets heightened and bad things happen. It’s not Murphy’s Law, it’s M*ngolian Law.

For example, the night before the exhibit we went to the cultural center with a bunch of the students and a couple friends to hang the photos on the walls. As we’re walking through the busy front doors a man decides to *punch the bag of photos* and then yell at us for being foreigners because “he is a M*ngolian”. Thankfully, none of the photos of his country were damaged.

Then, as we were re-hanging some of the photos the next day, Kim left her presentation speech out on a table in clear plastic folder. At some point in the preparation she went to practice her speech only to find someone had stolen the plastic sleeve it was in. Thankfully, they left the speech.

Then, after spending hours writing said presentation, the time came for her to give it. In the midst of all of the craziness of setting up her own exhibit she was going to do a favor for the man who runs the center by speaking to a class of his students. Turns out he completely forgot that he had asked her to do that.  Why? Because he had been drinking when he originally asked her and didn’t remember. Thankfully that left her with more time to set up.

So yeah, those kind of things happen occasionally out here but they tend to happen in bulk around special events.

The exhibit itself was wonderful though. The students’ parents came and got to see their work and tell us how proud of their children they were. The students got to share their work and talent with friends and strangers. Our good M*ngolian friend said that he cried as he looked at the pictures because he was so moved. A lot of M*ngolians got to see an art form and perspective they don’t usually get to see.

I hadn’t noticed it until we had all of the photos laid out in our apartment but what the students had done, however unconsciously, was capture and told a really unique story. All good art tells a story. A good song, a good book, a good painting; they tell stories. What the students had done with what Kim had taught them was tell their stories - the story of what it looks like to grow up at such a turbulent time in an emerging country, where there is a distinct tension between tradition and modern influence. So, there were pictures of gers and high rises; herders and business men; elderly M*ngolians in traditional dress and teens that look like they’re off the streets of New York. It’s a perspective special to this place, this time, and these kids.

I’m really proud of the students and their great work, but I’m even more proud of Kim for giving them the tools to tell their stories - stories which we’ll hopefully be able to share with you in an exhibit back in the States.

One of the walls of photos.

Chinzorig answering questions about one of his pictures.

Kim, some of her students, and the celebatory cake afterward.

I don’t know what Fred Durst or Vanilla Ice are up to these days - my guess, aside from VH1 reality shows, not a whole lot - but maybe someone should give them a call and let them know that they have a hungry audience waiting for them in M*ngolia.