Description

DER requests a special grant of $20,000 to support the production of a book, The Uyghurs of Kashgar. While HRLI has supported documentation of the Chinese government’s crackdown on the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, this project will focus on an earlier time. The photographs were taken in 1998, when Kashgar was still a vibrant desert oasis and the government had not yet begun to detain Muslim minorities in reeducation camps, or to bulldoze and build over ancient sites and traditional architecture.
 
The book will feature 100 black-and-white images by photographer Kevin Bubriski, who trained his lens on the everyday lives of ordinary people and the cultural richness of Kashgar. It will include an introduction by anthropologist Dru Gladney (Pomona College) as well as contributions by Uyghur authors: the poet Tahir Hamut Izgil, based in the U.S., and Paris-based Uyghur ethnomusicologist Mukaddas Mijit.
 
The Uyghur community is now fractured due to surveillance, mass detention and incarceration. DER and Bubriski will engage in outreach to this diasporic community, as well as to media outlets in the U.S. and internationally. Freeman and others involved with the Uyghur community are committed to bringing the book, which will be fully bilingual, into other forms of social media to expand its reach.
 
DER was founded in 1968 to champion the creation, circulation, and preservation of documentary film and media that amplifies underrepresented voices, and inspires understanding about people and cultures of the world. DER served as fiscal sponsor for Bubriski’s 2019 book, Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War, which received a special project grant from the Luce Foundation. Legacy has been featured in interviews on BBC World News and PBS NewsHour, and reviewed in New York Review of Books, Washington Post, NPR, and other outlets.
 
Most of our grant funds would cover honoraria for authors, translators and the photographer. The total project budget is $56,900. The Scanlon Family Foundation is providing $20,000, and additional funds are currently being sought.