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Laureates in Paris

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In 2008, the French capital played host to three recent Laureates of the Rolex Awards as they presented their work to the public. France has strong links with the Rolex Awards, boasting 12 Laureates and Associate Laureates over the past 32 years. Eleven French scientists, explorers and experts have given their services as members of the Rolex Awards Selection Committee, and the 2004 Rolex Awards presentation was held in Paris.

Film opens in Paris

The Paris opening of L'École Nomade (School on the Move), a 52-minute documentary by French film-maker Michel Debats, was attended by journalists, ethnologists and schoolchildren. Fascinated by the work of 2006 Rolex Laureate Alexandra Lavrillier, a Parisian ethnologist who works alongside the nomadic Evenk people to help them preserve their way of life, Debats spent a month filming in the harsh conditions of the Siberian taiga.

The nomad school established by Lavrillier has enabled 21 young Evenks to follow the official Russian syllabus without leaving their parents, who are hunters and reindeer herders in the taiga. The Evenk way of life has been under threat for decades from the modern world, particularly because Evenk children are required by law to follow the national school curriculum which – until Lavrillier began her project – meant that they had to spend months at a time in boarding school, far from their families.

In June 2008, the first series of pupils from the nomad school scored top marks at their third examination by the Russian education authorities. Throughout the school year, seven teachers travelled on sledges to teach the children as their nomadic families moved across a region covering over 1,500km2.

The results exceeded all expectations. “The children who learned to read and count in the taiga scored better than those from the village school where they sat their exam,” says Lavrillier, who is using the funding from her Rolex Award to run the travelling school for five years.

Michel Debats’ film follows nine-year-old Andreij, Anastacija, 4, and their classmates during lessons with teacher, Klara Abramova, A tent that serves as a classroom in the taiga where they learn from parents and elders the skills and rules they need to survive: how to care for reindeer, hunt sable and elk, recognize edible berries and leave wood behind for the camp’s next occupants.

The students are also initiated into rituals regulating nomadic life, such as hanging ribbons in trees to ensure the goodwill of Bugha, the spirit of nature, or building tombs for the remains of the sacred bears they hunt and skin.

“Our children learn to listen to nature: the trees, the wind, the rivers, the animals, the invisible,” one mother explains. “None of this knowledge is taught in boarding schools.”

The film, in which the Evenks speak their own language, has struck a chord in Russia, where about 30 Siberian minorities are seeking to balance tradition and modern life.

In September 2008, L’École Nomade won the prize for best documentary at the 12th Golden Drum Festival in Khanty-Mansiysk, in Western Siberia. It has also won awards in the United States, where it received the Merit Award for Educational Value at the Montana Film Festival and the Chris Award at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival.

Alexandra Lavrillier is delighted that the film has won such wide recognition as the Evenks themselves are very proud of it: “They put heart and soul into this film – the first they consider to be truly theirs.”

Europe impressed by Cambodian silk

The finest silk, produced in Cambodian workshops set up by 2004 Laureate Kikuo Morimoto, is drawing growing interest worldwide from lovers of fine fabric. Morimoto say news of his Award, which has helped him set up a village devoted to the production of silk, has increased the numbers of foreign visitors to the workshops in Cambodia.

An exhibition of the silk fabrics, at Asia, a Paris travel agency (and later at the Asia agency in Lyons) stimulated wide interest in France. A total of 44 silk fabrics, from scarves to large, intricate wall-hangings created by the weavers and dyers in Morimoto’s workshops, were on display and available for purchase. All were made by hand using natural materials and dyes.

Dr Linda Hanssen, curator of textiles at the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said: “In the creation of these dazzling and colourful silk weavings, one can witness the devotion of the Cambodian women who produce the silk, who tie and dye the yarns into intricate patterns and weave their silk heritage. The elaborate and extremely fine textiles we can admire today express an extraordinary creativity by creating and recreating the rich Cambodian textile tradition.”

Kikuo Morimoto was delighted to be able to come to Paris and put the silks on display for a European audience, but he says the best place for people to buy them is at the Cambodian workshops where they are made – and where the process of producing silk can be seen in all its stages.

The Laureate has workshops providing jobs for hundreds of women in Siem Reap. But increasingly the focus of the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT), which he set up 12 years ago, is the Forest Village, located 23km from Siem Reap.

“About 150 people are now living in the village [which is devoted to traditional silk production] and more people will come to live there,” Morimoto says.

His intention is to give people in his employ a livelihood. After learning weaving and dyeing skills in his workshops, many of the silk-makers have moved on, working for other silk producers or returning to their villages to produce their own silk.

“That’s a positive thing,” he explains. “I consider myself to be like a tree; young weavers can take shelter on the branches while they learn the skills. But when they are strong enough they can fly away and be independent, and not need the tree anymore.”

Cambodian silk is increasingly being recognized as some of the best in the world, whereas previously Thai silk had all the glory. And, Morimoto points out as he looks at the elaborate fabrics from his workshops on display in Paris, silk is being seen as art, not just as a craft.

Top-quality silk, he says, deserves far more than just a glance of the eye or stroke of the hand: “As we make our textiles, we bear in mind that they will be used for ten years, or for 20 years, and with that purpose in mind we want to make good use of raw materials, skills and experience. The lifespan of a natural fibre begins when it is dyed with a natural substance, and with the passing of the years its colour deepens. The fundamental difference is that chemical dye is at its best when just done, and it goes on to fade.” He himself marvels at colour tones in Cambodian fabrics that are 70 or 80 years old – fabrics that he has managed to track down and now uses for inspiration in his workshops.

Ancient sails of Bangladesh

Runa Khan Marre, who was selected as an Associate Laureate in 2006 for her project to preserve her nation’s ancient, boat-building heritage, lent two full-scale sailing craft and 50 small-scale replicas to France’s Musée national de la Marine (National Maritime Museum) between January and November 2008.

The museum has several major exhibition areas across France and the boats were displayed at two of them, the Palais de Chaillot in Paris and the Château de Brest in Brittany. Many thousands of people visited the exhibition, and museums in Luxembourg, Sweden, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have expressed interest in hosting the extensive display in 2009.

Khan Marre, who prepared the exhibition with her husband, Frenchman Yves Marre, explains that the Musée national de la Marine was interested in exhibiting the boats because they are faithful reconstructions of real boats. “The replicas are made by the same traditional craftsmen who construct the full-scale boats for sailing on Bangladeshi waterways,” she says. “These are not model boats. They are created as closely [to the originals] and authentically as is possible. The original full-scale boats brought livelihood and pride to generations of sailors in my country.”

The replicas, each measuring between 40cm and a metre in length, illustrate 42 different types of boats that were, until the 20th century, an important means of transport in Bangladesh. Two carpenters also travelled from Bangladesh to Paris for the exhibition.

The Associate Laureate adds that the exhibition in Europe – “Voiles anciennes du Bangladesh” (Ancient Sails of Bangladesh) – is a welcome opportunity to promote awareness of Bangladesh’s rich maritime tradition, as a political and financial crisis in her country forced her in 2007 to put on hold her plans to open the Living Museum of the Wooden Boats of Bengal. “Local funding dried up because of the political crisis during which many business people were jailed,” she says. But, with the December 2008 elections now over, Khan Marre is confident that the building in which the living museum will be located can now be renovated.

The Living Museum is one of five sectors of activity supported by Friendship International, a non-governmental organization founded by Khan Marre and her husband. The NGO helps about 53,000 people a month, mainly in Bangladesh but also in Pakistan, and is directed at the very poorest sector of the population. The other areas of activity are health (through supporting, for example, mobile hospitals on boats), education (establishing schools in villages), relief and reconstruction and sustainable income generation.

Khan Marre says the most difficult project to raise funds for is the museum. “No one wants to give money for a cultural project, it’s uphill work, though I can get funds for humanitarian work,” she explains. “The funds from my Rolex Award have been very useful to maintain the boats and the replicas, so that everything will be ready when the building [that will house the museum] has been renovated.”

Francesco Raeli and Edmund Doogue

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