Overland trail
London freelance photographer SARA HAQ has crossed continents for her work and recently exhibited at a London gallery. She introduces a selection of the images
THESE PHOTOGRAPHS were taken on a remarkable and spontaneous 8,000-mile journey I made by train and bus a year ago with filmmaker Mark Chaplin. They are part of an evolving body of work I call The Overland Project, which was exhibited at the Alexia Goethe Gallery in London.
I met Mark Chaplin only in January last year but we quickly wrote a business plan and raised funds for an expedition, leaving London in February.
It was a sustainable low-carbon journey from London to Phuket in Thailand, making still photographs, film and sound recordings as we experienced 11 countries, many languages, cultures, stories and stunning scenery.
The plan was to share our research as we travelled by using twitter updates, a blog and online networks.
Our route took us by train to Moscow, where we picked up the Trans-Mongolian Express to Beijing: six nights on a packed train with outside temperatures dropping to minus 40 degrees.
After four days exploring projects in Beijing, we were back on a train for two nights to Hanoi, Vietnam, where we stayed four nights interviewing inspiring entrepreneurs, delighting in the colours, warmth and cuisine. The last leg of the journey was by bus through Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
These images are just a taste of a very colourful story, interwoven with stories of the people we encountered, from the chanting migrant workers on a deportation route back to China, to the bartering babushkas selling home-made fare alongside the railway tracks.
We visited inspiring enterprises, such as KOTO in Hanoi, a not-for-profit restaurant and vocational training programme that is changing the lives of street kids in Vietnam. We met groups of artists and documented their roles in developing and improving their communities.
You can see much more in the unusual 112-page catalogue that has more than 200 images and includes texts by Richard Dyer (Contemporary Magazine) and John Bird (founder of The Big Issue). It doubles as a learning resource, exploring subjects ranging from immigration, migration, work, play and intercultural communication to the idea of the artist as entrepreneur.
The Overland Project catalogue is available from Alexia Goethe Gallery
Sara Haq was a member of the NUJ London Freelance Branch committee for five years