Indonesia
Singapore
Maldives
Monique Stauder
Latitude Zero
A Singular Vision – Paul Theroux In mid-November 2000 I happened to be in a village of indigenous Secoya people on the Aguarico River, deep in the rainforest in the Oriente Province of Ecuador. I was laboring under the misapprehension that I was pretty far off the map. No sensible traveler should ever think this. There is always someone who has gone farther, and except for a happy accident you will never know that person’s name. The nearest town up-river was the miserable oil-depot of Lago Agrio, and there early one hot morning I met a young gringita with the looks of a gypsy princess and a number of expensive cameras. This was Monique Stauder. We traveled to Quito together and she told me her story. She had just completed a ten-day trip along the Putumayo River - much farther than I had gone - and had recorded it on film. She also had a scoop. The day before, on a border crossing into Colombia near Lago Agrio, some anti-government guerrillas has stopped twenty cars on the frontier bridge and presented drivers with a quaint dilemma:You have a choice [they said], either set your cars on fire or we will shoot you. Moments later, twenty cars were blazing, closing the border. Although I had been nearby, I had no idea of this. How did Monique know? “I hung out near there and was hoping to get some pictures.” And how was it that she was traveling on the Putumayo River? “It’s on the Equator,” she said.
Her obsession, her passion, her solitary mission and ultimately her book. How I admired this
“It’s my - I don’t know what to call it? - my project.”
woman - for her pictures, for her dedication to her art, for her traveling alone, recording a portion of the world that few outsiders see. The only journeys that make sense to me are those that begin with a theoretical itinerary. Down a river, along a coastline or through a railway network, island hopping; such journeys seem to me always in the nature of a quest - all other trips are hit or miss. Travel itself is usually pointless enough; no sense making it utterly random. Monique Stauder wanted to record her impressions of the equator. It was a brave mission. Look at the places! Somalia, the Congo, the Brazilian interior, the Gilbert Islands, and many more, just as difficult and inaccessible. Monique saw it through, self-financed, traveling on her own nickel, nearly always alone, catching the weekly qat-flight - transporting the local narcotic- to Somalia, and spending a lot of time in dugout canoes. Though we have stayed in touch by email and letter, I have only seen Monique once since our fortunate meeting in Ecuador. Her equanimity is intact, her resolve is strong. My perennial question is: How do you keep men from pestering you? Her usual answer is that she tells the men that she has a fiance, and to make the point she wears her grandmother’s wedding ring. “It must be lucky.” I have said nothing about her photographs. I leave the viewer to discover their originality, the magic of their reality, the singular vision of this brave woman.
A Singular Vision – Paul Theroux In mid-November 2000 I happened to be in a village of indigenous Secoya people on the Aguarico River, deep in the rainforest in the Oriente Province of Ecuador. I was laboring under the misapprehension that I was pretty far off the map. No sensible traveler should ever think this. There is always someone who has gone farther, and except for a happy accident you will never know that person’s name. The nearest town up-river was the miserable oil-depot of Lago Agrio, and there early one hot morning I met a young gringita with the looks of a gypsy princess and a number of expensive cameras. This was Monique Stauder. We traveled to Quito together and she told me her story. She had just completed a ten-day trip along the Putumayo River - much farther than I had gone - and had recorded it on film. She also had a scoop. The day before, on a border crossing into Colombia near Lago Agrio, some anti-government guerrillas has stopped twenty cars on the frontier bridge and presented drivers with a quaint dilemma:You have a choice [they said], either set your cars on fire or we will shoot you. Moments later, twenty cars were blazing, closing the border. Although I had been nearby, I had no idea of this. How did Monique know? “I hung out near there and was hoping to get some pictures.” And how was it that she was traveling on the Putumayo River? “It’s on the Equator,” she said.
Her obsession, her passion, her solitary mission and ultimately her book. How I admired this
“It’s my - I don’t know what to call it? - my project.”
woman - for her pictures, for her dedication to her art, for her traveling alone, recording a portion of the world that few outsiders see. The only journeys that make sense to me are those that begin with a theoretical itinerary. Down a river, along a coastline or through a railway network, island hopping; such journeys seem to me always in the nature of a quest - all other trips are hit or miss. Travel itself is usually pointless enough; no sense making it utterly random. Monique Stauder wanted to record her impressions of the equator. It was a brave mission. Look at the places! Somalia, the Congo, the Brazilian interior, the Gilbert Islands, and many more, just as difficult and inaccessible. Monique saw it through, self-financed, traveling on her own nickel, nearly always alone, catching the weekly qat-flight - transporting the local narcotic- to Somalia, and spending a lot of time in dugout canoes. Though we have stayed in touch by email and letter, I have only seen Monique once since our fortunate meeting in Ecuador. Her equanimity is intact, her resolve is strong. My perennial question is: How do you keep men from pestering you? Her usual answer is that she tells the men that she has a fiance, and to make the point she wears her grandmother’s wedding ring. “It must be lucky.” I have said nothing about her photographs. I leave the viewer to discover their originality, the magic of their reality, the singular vision of this brave woman.
In honor of my parents who taught me about love, my brother who taught me no fear …
Soaked in aurora’s first light, I woke up in translucent sweat … I had a dream and it was robust … I was on a journey roaming around earth’s edge, the equator, where the sun most intensely and consistently shines and yet I had no shadow … how brilliantly curious … I was chasing after this fireball in the sky, playing in its light and at the same time its ever-present luminance sang through me … I simultaneously felt the magnitude of a perfect sphere before my eyes and under my feet intimately connecting me to nature and humanity but also to something grander, infinite, beyond this human experience, something in which we all reflect … The impact was profound … i had an insatiable desire to create something authentic, compassionate and reflective of our shared common human experience, something noble that I could wholeheartedly cherish and others could ponder and act upon … the supposed separation between fellow beings and with something greater had to end, injustices had to
Without a moment’s hesitation, i swan dove into a spherical journey paying tribute to earth’s
dissolve, equal rights had to be honored by all, for all…
movement around the sun while trying to be equally clairvoyant with each step, thought and image … I wrote in my journal: life is why i get out of bed every morning ... let it shine through me and govern my every step, love is why i am here right now ... let it shine through me and govern every decision, truth is why i document this human experience ... let it shine through me and govern every shutter release … Granted there were equatorial days where i ripped through morsels of bureaucratic disillusionment or digested bittersweet memories but i drank in words from enlightened thinkers, listened to every walk of life and immersed myself deeper into my vision … epiphanies came … I had to be revolutionary in Spirit not just evolutionary in self … I had to leap not trot … I was a passionate artist following a dream, living my truth as well as a documentary historian with a social obligation to document Life around the center of the earth dawning in a new millennium but I also had to honor whatever was the source of light beyond the sun, something bolder than bold, something with an absolute-precious-spiritualradical presence which was beyond my vocabulary but profoundly felt in my heart …
In honor of my parents who taught me about love, my brother who taught me no fear …
Soaked in aurora’s first light, I woke up in translucent sweat … I had a dream and it was robust … I was on a journey roaming around earth’s edge, the equator, where the sun most intensely and consistently shines and yet I had no shadow … how brilliantly curious … I was chasing after this fireball in the sky, playing in its light and at the same time its ever-present luminance sang through me … I simultaneously felt the magnitude of a perfect sphere before my eyes and under my feet intimately connecting me to nature and humanity but also to something grander, infinite, beyond this human experience, something in which we all reflect … The impact was profound … i had an insatiable desire to create something authentic, compassionate and reflective of our shared common human experience, something noble that I could wholeheartedly cherish and others could ponder and act upon … the supposed separation between fellow beings and with something greater had to end, injustices had to
Without a moment’s hesitation, i swan dove into a spherical journey paying tribute to earth’s
dissolve, equal rights had to be honored by all, for all…
movement around the sun while trying to be equally clairvoyant with each step, thought and image … I wrote in my journal: life is why i get out of bed every morning ... let it shine through me and govern my every step, love is why i am here right now ... let it shine through me and govern every decision, truth is why i document this human experience ... let it shine through me and govern every shutter release … Granted there were equatorial days where i ripped through morsels of bureaucratic disillusionment or digested bittersweet memories but i drank in words from enlightened thinkers, listened to every walk of life and immersed myself deeper into my vision … epiphanies came … I had to be revolutionary in Spirit not just evolutionary in self … I had to leap not trot … I was a passionate artist following a dream, living my truth as well as a documentary historian with a social obligation to document Life around the center of the earth dawning in a new millennium but I also had to honor whatever was the source of light beyond the sun, something bolder than bold, something with an absolute-precious-spiritualradical presence which was beyond my vocabulary but profoundly felt in my heart …
“There is that in me – I do not know what it is but I know it is in me. Wretch’d and sweaty – calm and cool then my body becomes, I sleep – I sleep long. I do not know it – it is without name – it is a word unsaid, it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death – it is form, union, plan – it is eternal life – it is Happiness.” ~ Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, verse 5: Song of Myself
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
“There is that in me – I do not know what it is but I know it is in me. Wretch’d and sweaty – calm and cool then my body becomes, I sleep – I sleep long. I do not know it – it is without name – it is a word unsaid, it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death – it is form, union, plan – it is eternal life – it is Happiness.” ~ Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, verse 5: Song of Myself
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
The Amazon river system alone is 3165 km inside Brazil, and the number of tributaries has no equal in the world. I had to venture up one as I studied my aeronautical map cocooned in a ferryboat hammock sway. I was curious about this ax-pick next to Trombetas Port marking a bauxite mine yearly producing 17 million tons and privately run by Mineracao Rio do Norte since 1974. In 1986 a tailing pond revegetation system <in 7 pages> began but by 1999, only 25 hectares had reached significant regrowth.
The Amazon river system alone is 3165 km inside Brazil, and the number of tributaries has no equal in the world. I had to venture up one as I studied my aeronautical map cocooned in a ferryboat hammock sway. I was curious about this ax-pick next to Trombetas Port marking a bauxite mine yearly producing 17 million tons and privately run by Mineracao Rio do Norte since 1974. In 1986 a tailing pond revegetation system <in 7 pages> began but by 1999, only 25 hectares had reached significant regrowth.