A vast, empty landscape in the farthest reaches of the Inner Mongolia province of China, Badain Jaran is one of the few environs in the world that has not been obsessively catalogued, photographed, and explored in this age of Google Maps and Lonely Planet travel guides. Except for two German-Chinese research expeditions in 1988 and 1993, the desert remained mostly unknown to Western travellers. From 2009 and 2012, artist and photographer Carlos Crespo made several trips to the virtually untouched and almost inaccessible region to document both the starkly beautiful scenery and the lives of the few Mongolian herdsmen who dwell on the fringes of the desert. Crespo recorded Barain Jaran’s numerous sand dunes, some of which reach 1,600 feet tall, and the freshwater and saline lakes that dot the desert. His stunning photographs were all taken while battling the intemperate weather of the region; winter temperatures can get as low as -40 DegreesF and the spring and autumn bring violent sandstorms. The results of Crespo’s labours are devastatingly gorgeous, and Barain Jaran offers its readers a rare chance to glimpse a world unmarked by humanity. Text in English & German.
AUTHORS: Bill Kouwenhoven, born 1961 in Baltimore, is International Editor of HotShoe magazine and contributes to other photography journals in the United States, England and Europe including Afterimage, Aperture, British Journal of Photography, Photonews, and European Photography. He is also author of various books on contemporary photography.
Catherine Hug graduated from University of Zurich and has been working as a curator at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna since 2008. Carlos Crespo studied photography and classical music, and he lives and works as an independent and internationally active artist and photographer in Zurich.