Your holiday – Our homeland: How young photographers from Kerala see tourism

For once, it’s not the tourists that are snapping away and not the locals that serve as the souvenirs. Young photographers from Kerala – the booming holiday destination at the southern tip of India – turn their sights on tourism. Their pictures tell of encounters between foreign visitors and locals that hardly – or never – take place yet definitely leave their mark. The photographers’ viewpoint is critical and inquiring, but also mirrors their pride in their own country, the beauty of its landscape and the variety of its culture. Because they are seldom consulted, their observations are ambivalent and sometimes awkward, in marked contrast to the glossy tourism advertising.

Photo gallery

arbeitskreis tourismus & entwicklung, Switzerland’s only centre of competence for tourism development policy, was celebrating 2007 its 30th anniversary. To mark the occasion, it organized a competition for young photographers with the SDC’s support and in conjunction with Kabani, its partner organization from Kerala, southern India. Some 40 young people responded with spontaneous interest to this rare opportunity to express their views on tourism.

The exhibition features pictures by nine photographers which were often taken under difficult conditions such as problems gaining access to tourist areas, protracted monsoon rains and lack of equipment.

www.fairunterwegs.org
www.kabani.org