The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority population who live in the western province of Xinjiang, in China. In the past five years, more than one million Uyghurs have been imprisoned by the Chinese government in “re-education centers.” According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Uyghurs have also been subjected to surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labor and sterilization.
In the late 1990s, years before this crackdown on Uyghur culture began, Vermont-based documentary photographer Kevin Bubriski spent time in Kashgar, the ancient city of the Uyghurs on the old Silk Road. He made portraits and took photos of street scenes. He collected those images in a new photo book, The Uyghurs: Kashgar before the Catastrophe.
Kevin lives in Shaftsbury, and his work has been featured in renowned institutions across the globe, from the Museum of Modern Arts and the Met to the National Library of France.
Broadcast at noon Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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