THE SILK ROAD: A LIVING HISTORY

Granary Square Kings Cross, London
THE SILK ROAD: A LIVING HISTORY image
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Event has ended
This event ended on Wednesday 16th of June 2021
Admission
Free
Location

Granary Square Kings Cross, London

Nearest Tube/Rail Stations
King's Cross St. Pancras 0.24 miles

An outdoor exhibition capturing the world’s oldest trade route, with travel photographer Christopher Wilton-Steer

Journey across desert, mountain and sea at this new open-air exhibition in Granary Square. Photographer Christopher Wilton-Steer travelled along the historic trade route known as The Silk Road in 2019, capturing a series of breathtaking images along the way.
Over a period of four months, he travelled the 40,000 km by car, bus, train, ferry, horse and camel from Kings Cross to Beijing, through a total of sixteen countries.

Comprised of over 160 photographs, The Silk Road: A Living History invites you to take the journey, too encountering fascinating people, places and cultures along the way. The exhibition’s linear design creates a physical route for the viewer offering them the chance to travel by proxy.

The exhibition is part of The Outside Arts Project in Kings Cross. You can see it on 24 art benches on display in Granary Square from 8 April to 16 June 2021. Admission is free and open to all.

With galleries closed due to the lockdown, this outdoor exhibition — which allows for social distancing — offers some much-needed cultural stimulation.

The Silk Road was the name given to the numerous trading routes that connected China and the West. It was first established during the days of the Roman Empire, and for several centuries it facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas, religions and technologies across 1000s of miles, shaping the world as we know it. While it lost its prominence to new maritime trade routes by the 1600s, its legacy still endures.
The Silk Road: A Living History exhibition celebrates the diversity of cultural expression found along the route, highlighting how historical practices, rituals and customs live on today. Created with the Aga Khan Foundation, the show also seeks to engender interest and understanding between distant cultures and challenge perceptions of less well-known and understood parts of the world.

Photographs include snapshots of everyday life in Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, China and elsewhere.

Visitors will be able to access additional content including videos and music via QR codes on each panel of the exhibition. And, restrictions permitting, the exhibition will be accompanied by a full programme of publicly accessible talks and workshops at the Aga Khan Centre.

Tags: Exhibition

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