Prague, Sept 26 (CTK) – An exhibition of photos of Buddhist nuns from the Himalayas by Olivier Adam will be opened in the National Gallery in Prague (NG) on October 19 under the aegis of the Dalai Lama, NG director Jiri Fajt has told CTK.
The exhibition will be held within the Forum 2000 conference, which was founded by the former Czech president and the Dalai Lama’s friend, Vaclav Havel, 20 years ago.
The conference brings together personalities and thinkers who discuss human rights issues and focus on the role of education in the promotion of democracy.
This year, it will be held on October 16-19 and the Dalai Lama will address it on the last day when the public will have an opportunity to meet him.
He will not probably take part in the inauguration of the exhibition for time reasons.
Adam has lent the gallery its cycle called Daughters of Buddha on which he has worked in northern India close to Dharamsala, or the place where the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans found refuge after China invaded Tibet in 1959.
The exhibition in the Kinsky Palace in Prague centre will last until February 28.
The Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize winner of 1989, attended the conference in 2013 the previous time. He paid the first visit to former Czechoslovakia at the invitation of president Havel, a former dissident, on February 2, 1990. He met Havel shortly before his death in December 2011.
Since then, the Dalai Lama has visited Prague several times. His visits always draw criticism of China.
Adam and his wife, journalist Dominique, have documented the life of Buddhist nuns for more than eight years.
The Prague exhibition will be held in cooperation with the Most Pro Tibet NGO, which promotes education and the improving of the living conditions of Tibetan children, seniors, Buddhist monks and nuns.
Special prints of the photographs will be on sale at the exhibition or on the Internet. The proceeds will go to the education of girls and women and to improving their fundamental living conditions in convent schools in northern India.
The project also aims to preserve Tibetan culture and traditions.
Adam, who claims the humanitarian tradition in photographs, regularly works for the Dalai Lama’s office as a photographer during his visits to Europe.
