Marla Mossman said friends have used the word “courage” to describe her journey of peace, which has taken her to places that most foreigners, particularly Americans, would just as soon avoid.

But in describing her travels Monday night at West Virginia University’s 2010 David C. Hardesty, Jr. Festival of Ideas, Mossman, a photographer, artist and poet, says she’s never felt unwelcome anywhere, even when visiting war-torn Afghanistan in 2005.

“The people have been extraordinarily hospitable; there’s a warmth,” Mossman said. “Like the people of Turkey, for instance, they want to go out of their way to be hospitable. In the Bedouin culture, hospitality is a big thing. There’s a tradition in the desert and in these different cultures to make friends, to be hospitable to strangers.
“Trust is the currency of the traveler. You have to trust people. That’s the instinct.”

Click to hear Mossman

Mossman shared photographs from Afghanistan during “Peace Caravan – Journey Along the Silk Road: Afghanistan,” many of women and children. By exhibiting her photos, Mossman hopes to illustrate the commonality of all people.

“The kind of photographs I’m taking are of everyday people,” she said. “My mission is that we see our similarities, we share our dreams and hopes.”

The Silk Road is a trail from Jerusalem to China that features places of historical and religious significance mentioned in the Bible, Torah, Koran and Vedas. Mossman has been to the Silk Road region four times, most recently to the Middle East where she departed from Istanbul, Turkey and traveled overland through Syria and Jordan to Jerusalem documenting the Mediterranean terminus of the ancient trade route and desert origins of the three great religions.

Born in Detroit and raised and educated in Canada, Mossman has traveled extensively documenting the human condition.

Avidly interested in promoting arts and education, she co-established non-profit art organizations – MMARTS in London and Art Soup in Santa Barbara, Calif. – both of which developed permanent exhibition spaces for local artists. She is the co-founder of ImagineAsia, a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide education and healthcare to rural Asian communities.

In Afghanistan she worked with the ministers from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Education in Kabul and Bamiyan Province. She was the first foreigner and woman to visit Waras, a remote part of central Afghanistan on horseback, with donkey and mules.

On an earlier trip to northern India, Mossman hiked and backpacked to an altitude of 18,000 feet in the Himalayas to obtain her photographs. She has traveled extensively in Europe and the United Kingdom, Peru, Turkey, Thailand, Nepal and Indonesia, and has backpacked not only the Himalayas, but also the Inca Trail and the High Sierras.
Mossman’s presentation is cosponsored by the Nath Lecture Series. She was the fourth speaker at the Festival of Ideas, which continues through April.

The series is supported in part by the David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas Endowment, which was established in 2007 by the WVU Foundation, a private, nonprofit corporation that generates, receives and administers private gifts from individuals and organizations for the benefit of WVU. Mossman’s presentation is cosponsored by the Nath Lecture Series.

To view the complete 2010 Festival of Ideas schedule, visit http://festivalofideas.wvu.edu .

-WVU-

03/16/10

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