We at Ariun Rashaan NGO, or “Magic Healing Waters,” hear of numerous worthwhile ideas and projects, but can only get involved in a few of these.
One of these ideas came from two Canadian students, Jon Smiley and Joey McDougall. Joey wrote from Canada saying that she and Jon had applied to various organizations in Canada for funding to come to Mongolia for the summer in order to study the Mongolian mystical arts. She asked if we would facilitate things from this end.
Naturally we were delighted. They arrived from Canada via Beijing, digital cameras and notepads in hand. While chatting about their ideas, we learned that they had originally conceived the project as a video event, but limitations in funding had cut it down to a photo shoot.
As fate would have it, we happened to have an extra Sony video camera on hand that we had purchased for another project and was no longer needed; and we also had a good quality laptop computer that we could spare. We therefore donated these to them for the success of their undertaking. Our friend Miga Batamgarab, a computer genius and video enthusiast, set them up with the software, and gave them a crash course in video editing.
Several artists from the Union of Mongolian Artists offered to take them under their wings and introduce them to the Mongolian art scene. In particular, Soyolma and Munkie, two of the country’s most highly regarded female artists, guided them through galleries and studios, and then took them to Kharakorum and Arhanghai for a more intimate look at the nomadic artistic traditions.
Our good friend Baasan Lama, one of the thirteen heroic leaders of the democracy movement that had overthrown Communism in Mongolia in 1991, later took them to Hamrid Hrid and Shambhala, Danzan Rabjaa’s two great creations in the Gobi.
The two students are now back in university in Canada, working on the editing phase of their video project.
Their project here received considerable media attention in Canada.
See www.deal.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=893&Itemid=1072%20
And keep an ete on YouTibe for the actual video.
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| Jon Smiley and Joey McDougall on video project in Mongolia. |
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