The Last Transhumance is a visual art project which takes us into the world of shepherds who walk with their animals very long distances in search for food, an ancient way of life not compatible with the modern world. Transhumance is replaced by sedentary forms of animal breeding affecting the spiritual, social, cultural life & biodiversity. Stories of shepherds from Romania, Greece, Albania, Turkey, Italy & Wales invite us through photography and film to reconsider our relationship with nature.
Cross-border/international
Romania
Greece
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Albania
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Italy
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Other
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Other
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-06-01
As an individual
First name: Dragos Last name: Lumpan Gender: Male Nationality: Romania Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Str Gura Vadului 1 Town: Bucharest Postal code: 032336 Country: Romania Direct Tel:+40 722 207 407 E-mail:dragos@lumpan.com Website:https://lumpan.com/
Transhumance is the livestock’s movement in search of available pastures, over considerable distances, following seasonal patterns. Shepherds and their families live in temporary or movable shelters. Unlike other ways of breeding animals, shepherds who practice transhumance walk a lot with their animals: over 500 kilometers every year. Some of them sleep outside under the open sky, regardless of season or weather.
In 2007 I began work at "The Last Transhumance" project photographing one family of shepherds who had been walking with their sheep for generations. While working on the project this family gave up transhumance due to economic reasons mainly. I had to find another family. At the end of 2009, photos from this project were awarded in the 'European Central Bank Annual Photography Award' competition, and they were exhibited in Frankfurt at the ECB headquarters and in Bucharest at the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Between 2010 – 2017 I followed transhumance in Albania, Greece, Italy, Wales, Turkey and in Romania. I made about 40 trips to shepherds, traveled over 50000 km, took about 100000 photos, 100 hours of footage. In 2011 the photo album "The Last Transhumance" was printed at the EBS art printing house in Verona. The project was exhibited in several countries: Austria, Spain, Wales, Turkey, France, Italy, Romania. To continue work on the post production of the feature documentary film we successfully ran two crowdfunding campaigns. In 2022 I finished the post production of the documentary film and have been sending it to film festivals. In 2022 photos from the project were acquired by The National Museum of Contemporary Art (Bucharest), while The Museum of Recent Art in (Bucharest) exhibited some of the works.
The results of the project: numerous photo exhibitions, website www.transhumance.ro/en, photo album, documentary film.
Main objective of the project: the rehabilitation of the shepherd's image at society level.
transhumance
people
nature
nomadism
shepherds
Through this project I wanted to record a faithful portrait of the transhumant shepherd's job in our times. The project shows the cycle of life within these communities, showing their direct connection with nature, with the astronomical calendar and with the people around them. Most times I was on my own with the shepherds. My only crew was just a translator from time to time. I became part of the shepherds’ family. I walked with them, I dined with them, I slept under summer skies and on frozen winter grounds like them. I was one of them and this inside view is an essential part of the project. A large crew would have inhibited the shepherds and in addition would have greatly increased the production costs.
This project brought to the public's attention a way of life that is almost unknown to the vast majority of people. Through transhumance, shepherds manage to use natural resources perfectly. In spring they go up with the sheep from the plains to the mountains. In autumn they make this way back. Each journey lasts approximately one month; during this time the sheep eat the agricultural remains that they find on the road. In this way the leftovers are used; otherwise they would be thrown away. In addition, according to both popular experience and scientific research, the passage of a flock of sheep is beneficial for an agricultural land.
During the summer, the sheep are taken to the mountains; there the sheep graze on the mountain pastures. In this way, the community uses the mountain pastures sparingly and thus the phenomenon of banalization the biological component of the landscape is avoided.
At the opposite pole of transhumance is the globalization of human communities and the specific industrial methods of raising animals; because of them, the banalization of flora, vegetation and fauna occurs - parallel processes, triggered by the industrial revolution in the interior, but also in the estate of villages throughout Central Europe.
My artistic approach is very close to my personal approach: that of documenting simple people in their natural environment. Most of the time I was on my own with the shepherds. My only crew was just a translator now and then. I became part of the shepherds' families. I walked with them, dined with them, slept under lovely summer skies and on the frozen ground in winter like them.
I was one of them and this inside view is an essential part of this project.
Regarding the quality of the experience for people, I will give a quote from ECB catalog (European Central Bank Annual Photography Award 2009 – Romania) written by art historian Martin Hochleitner: <The subject here originates from works based on several months accompanying a Romanian family of shepherds and its flock of sheep. The individual animal, the flock of sheep, the landscape, the weather, the people and their lives and lifestyle become archetypal elements in the context of iconography, reflecting a documentary approach in a complex apparatus of components of a metaphoric, mythological and art-historical nature.
The overall concept illustrated in these particular works by Dragoş Lumpan traces back to the very origins of Romanian culture, conveying an everyday scenario still in existence today through the concept of iconography characterised by art history. Or, in other words, to give an example from art history: Caravaggio’s particularly lasting artistic impression was a result of the fact that he presented iconographic traditions with a new vision of contemporary social reality, thereby radicalising such traditions. In much the same way as Caravaggio presented his art with reference to time and place, Dragoş Lumpan works through the medium of photography. He comes from the angle of photography, which allows for deep contemporary discourse on the subject, but at the same time, in terms of the underlying concept, his work is very closely linked to the context of a Romanian identity.>
Being a shepherd used to mean status and respect. These things disappeared faster than the transhumance and the word shepherd became sort of an insult. In Romanian language we even have a pejorative expression: "What!? Are you a shepherd?"
One of the main characters in the project is the Romanian shepherd Ghita Danuletiu. At the beginning of the 2010s, I had several photo exhibitions in Romania with this project. The public campaigns of this project caught the attention of Vodafone Romania, who in 2013 contacted me and asked me to put them in contact with a shepherd. I recommended Ghita to them. In the following months, he became famous thanks to the Vodafone media campaign and known as "Ghita the Shepherd". The subject of transhumance and shepherds became more visible and national televisions and radios invited him to talk about his life as a shepherd. The project managed to bring more visibility to the shepherds who walk on long journeys with their sheep. Due to their profession, they are generally invisible to the vast majority of modern society. Many times the moments when these shepherds become visible are the results of misunderstandings with the farmers whose lands they have to cross on their way, land owners who do not agree with animals grazing their lands. In the film, one old shepherd speaks about the benefits of sheep grazing on soil quality.
With the help of this project, Ghita the Shepherd became famous, he gained courage, he fought even in court to support the shepherds and their cause, he organized protests to draw the attention of the authorities to some problems faced by the shepherds.
In 2022 I finished the film of the project. Before being completely ready, I organized screenings of a work-in-progress version of the film in larger cities and in places where access to culture is low, also in localities where there are many shepherds. In this way, the results of the project became known at several levels of society.
I consider that promoting this project gave back to transhumance its honorable status and the respect it deserves, it brought this subject out of a shadow cone.
Fifteen years ago, the image of the shepherd in Romania was not a very good one. In recent years things have improved; for example, in March 2022, 10 European countries, including Romania, submitted to UNESCO the multinational file "Transhumance, the seasonal displacement of herds", to be included in the Representative List of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Another example in this sense is the crowdfunding campaign; in order to be able to finish the documentary film, we carried out a crowdfunding campaign in Romania. This campaign was a real success, and the results exceeded initial expectations. At the international level, we successfully carried out another crowdfunding campaign. The photo album traveled all around the world (including Australia or United States) and photos from this project were purchased by various people from all over the world.
In the development stages of the project I collaborated with many partners, including institutions like Giresun Municipality (Turkey), Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Sicily (Italy), Austrian Academy of Sciences & University of Vienna (Austria), Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest (Romania). They provided their knowledge in the field and also logistic support.
For the implementation stage I collaborated with various museums and galleries from Romania and Wales, Romanian Cultural Institute from Bucharest, Istanbul, Paris, Madrid, Romanian National Cultural Administration, or private entities (such as ANFoSC - Associazione Nazionale Formaggi Sotto il Cielo, Italy). Photos from this project were purchased by large institutions such as European Central Bank (ECB), National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania (MNAC).
My area of expertise is photography and film. For this project I collaborated with anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, ethnographers, historians, environmental activists, translators.
I interviewed a lot of different people: from shepherds to academics; I interviewed anthropologists, sociologists, ethnographers, historian of religions even one zoo-archaeologist. I included their opinions in the documentary film and in the photo album.
The main result, and impact achieved by "The last transhumance" project is the better knowledge by the general public of the shepherds who go on the road with their animals and the improvement of their image.
The outcomes are: 15 photo exhibitions in Europe, one photography album, one documentary film (90 minutes long) and one website.
First target audience includes visual artists, film makers, photographers, the academic community of ethnologists and anthropologists. It also includes viewers of documentary projects, especially environmental ones. So far, the documentary film was invited to several environmental film festivals from Australia, USA, France, Romania. A secondary target includes people interested in ecotourism, local communities and biodiversity. For example, during the two crowdfunding campaigns, we noticed that many contributors were part of this category of audience. I noticed that the project was highly appreciated not only by art lovers but also by very diverse professional categories of people; one such category is represented by people connected to the IT industry.
The importance of this project goes beyond its artistic value. Besides losing a word, that is transhumance, we are losing a millennial way of life. And with it we are losing a clever way to raise animals, we are losing a part of our heritage and we are losing biodiversity. And even spirituality, as one historian of religions observed in one interview I took for the project: "If transhumance ends, a certain type of relationship ends with it. A certain type of spirituality that is implicit in the relationship will end. So, today, we are witnessing the demise of millennia of that spirituality."
The innovative character is given by:
- the same practice from 6 countries is visually compared
- it is a project comprising photo album, photo exhibitions, website, documentary film altogether
- the mix of different partners and collaborators
Most times I was on my own with the shepherds. My only crew was just a translator from time to time. I became part of the shepherds’ family. I walked with them, I dined with them, I slept under summer skies and on frozen winter grounds like them. I was one of them and this inside view is an essential part of the project. A large film crew would have inhibited the shepherds and in addition would have greatly increased the production costs.
In order to have a comprehensive view I gathered information from many sources and from different fields (anthropology, sociology, linguistics, ethnography, history, agriculture).
Recently, in Romania, similar projects appeared, like Transhumanta Carpatica, or the Museum of Transhumance. I believe that one of the reasons why this project was appreciated nationally and internationally is its high aesthetic standard. In my opinion such projects must give great importance to this aspect, because otherwise they risk remaining in the theoretical and rather sterile area of anthropological research that does not reach the general public to a large extent. Another important aspect that can be replicated is the diversity of the project's products: website, printed photo album, exhibitions, documentary film.
One of the theories I have heard in the 15 years I have been working on this project is that today's computers are somewhat related to the first automatic weaving machines. It is possible that this theory is exaggerated. But, for sure, together with global industrialization both agriculture and animal husbandry began to be increasingly mechanized. One of the countries where I took photos and filmed for this project is Wales, United Kingdom. Compared to the shepherds from the other five countries of the project (Italy, Greece, Albania, Turkey and Romania), the shepherds from Wales seemed almost from another planet, coming from the future. The UK researchers I spoke to were not entirely happy about this future. Together with the ultra-technology in the UK, the reverse side of the medal appears, also: the connection between man and animal is lost. Tim Salmon (writer and photographer), who studied this phenomenon in the UK and in Greece, says in an interview (which I included in the documentary film): " We have lost a lot in the industrialized modern world, in losing that contact, that very intimate contact between man and animal. […] But you can’t go back."
In the other five countries of the project (Italy, Greece, Albania, Turkey and in Romania) this close connection between man and animal has not yet been lost; the experience of shepherds in these countries can be used as an example of good practice for reconnecting with nature.
