[••• This event has been cancelled •••] The author of a recent book about Mongolia, Liza F. Carter, will speak at the Woods Hole Public Library on Wednesday, August 13, at 7:30 PM. An environmental scientist by training, Liza F. Carter uses art to beguile and captivate viewers into a loving and caring relationship with the natural world. Her recently published book, Moving with the Seasons: Portrait of a Mongolian Family, focuses on the life of the nomadic Mongolian family who became her collaborators in producing her book. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and a MA from Yale University. Liza has been an exhibiting artist since 1999 and has shown her work in solo and group shows throughout the United States. Liza is a photographer of indigenous cultures and peoples. Her purpose is to share unknown worlds and provide levels of understanding of other cultures that are more than just sound bites or sensationalism. In a world of computers, cell phones, frozen foods, and microwaves, she addresses the question of what life is like for those who aren’t part of that modern world? Her goal is to provide a glimpse into the emotional heart of a country through the means of understanding one family’s life. Moving with the Seasons: Portrait of a Mongolian Family draws on Liza F. Carter’s experience with a single family (who became her collaborators in writing this book) to reveal the unique culture of Mongolian nomads and their remarkable capacity to thrive in one of the world’s harshest environments. The family’s willingness to share with the rest of the world the annual cycle of nomadic life on the Mongolian steppe makes for an unusually intimate portrait. Much of the information found in the text and photographs comes directly from time spent with this family, and is not available in print elsewhere. The family blends ancient ways of living that have survived since the time of Genghis Khan in AD 1200 with elements of the modern world. Moving with the Seasons is both timely in its appeal to the growing awareness in the West that we have a lot to learn from traditional peoples before their ways of life disappear, and timeless in its representation of the humanity of the nomadic Mongolian family profiled in the book.
