Photographer Gareth Phillips brings us closer to the fragility, beauty & danger of a Himalayan road with his installation ‘NH5’.
For the last three years Gareth Phillips has travelled extensively across the West Indian Himalaya documenting the NH5 road as it has been developed and constructed for contemporary usage.
NH5, or to use its previous name, The Old Hindustan Tibet Road, connects the former British Hill Station of Shimla to the Indian/China border post of Shipki pass. A precipitous and treacherous route across the high Himalaya, it was originally part of an ancient trade route and was developed by the British in 1850 as a way of improving trade links to the Chinese hinterlands. Although the fractious border between India and China is now closed, the road is still a vital lifeline to the region, facilitating tourism, daily commutes for locals, the trade and distribution of agricultural commodities and the servicing of Hydro and Military establishments that populate this border region.
Through this photographic installation, Phillips takes us on an odyssey of the fragility, beauty and danger that permeates ‘NH5’. At every point, the splendour of the roads surrounding landscape is juxtaposed by the reality of its power to forcibly destroy man’s temporary interventions. Tarmac, concrete, landslides and car crashes feed into the cycle of order and chaos, of destruction and renewal that has become commonplace along the road, and for commuters that use it.
“Through awe-inspiring yet perilous landscapes, from which austere and foreboding manmade structures protrude, the spontaneous beauty of the natural world is at ends with the geometry and order of human edifice. With this work I present the attempts of humankind to tame and overcome the vast mountainous geology this road inhabits. It is a record of man’s futile endeavour to build harmony in a land of extremes”.”
NH5 has its simultaneous premier in Cardiff and London before being exhibited in Melbourne, Australia in the lead up to the PHOTO2020 festival. It is planned for exhibition in India later this year.
Gareth has been working closely with CULTVR to design the exhibition and offer a unique installation responding to the features of this new gallery space in the city. The opening starts at 6pm on Friday the 31st of January and will be running until 11pm. There will be a guided tour by the photographer at 7.30pm.
The exhibition will be open (by appointment only) until the 7th of February.
GET TICKETS FOR THE CARDIFF OPENING ON 31 JANUARY
Entry is free but requires a ticket booked via the event page on Eventbrite
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nh5-an-exhibition-by-gareth-phillips-tickets-89057207505
CULTVR Lab is Europe’s first immersive cross-disciplinary space with a strong focus on digital arts, live performance and 360º cinema. This unique venue on Cardiff’s Penarth Road allows for immersive technologies to be developed, tested and deployed, exploring new methods for storytelling within immersive performances and presentations.
Conceived by the award-winning studio 4Pi Productions, CULTVR opens its doors housing a myriad of immersive spaces including a 10ft and a 20ft stereoscopic domes, a VR playzone and the largest screen in Wales housed within a highly adaptable 40ft dome venue.
CULTVR LAB
327 Penarth Road, CF11 8TT
Cardiff, Wales