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Danish Photos to British archive

19 December 2002- A remarkable bequest was made in London yesterday as veteran Danish travel writer and photographer Jens Bjerre donated nearly 1000 of his prized photographs to the archive of the Royal Geographical Society.

During a ceremony in London, Danish travel author and photographer Jens Bjerre entrusted approximately 1000 of his scores of photographs from 50 years' worth of journeys to Britain's Royal Geographical Society. Many of the pictures document indigenous rituals and ceremonies that are no longer in practice, and are therefore extremely valuable to ethnographers and anthropologists.

81-year-old Bjerre has been affiliated with the renowned geographical society for more than 50 years, most recently as a Senior Fellow. The photographs donated to the archive include many depictions of Australia's Aboriginal population, the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, and mountain tribes in Papua New Guinea.

Bjerre's impressive body of work includes photographs from his first visit to the bushmen of Southern Africa in 1947, to his 1999 visit to the cave of the ancestral Baiami spirit in New South Wales, Australia. Bjerre has also won acclaim for his film footage of secret Aboriginal ceremonies surrounding the cave paintings of the Warlpiri tribe's rainbow snake on the Yuendumu Reservation in central Australia.

Jens Bjerre is a well-respected lecturer abroad and at several American universities.

Source:Copenhagen Post

related links :

• RGS
  Royal Geographic Society
• Royal Danish Embassy, London
  Royal Geographical Society receives unique anthropological collection

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