Through Asia in the Footsteps of Sven Hedin

http://svenhedin.com

THE SVEN HEDIN PROJECT
With the help of the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin’s diaries, maps and photos, we will conduct a series of expeditions in his footsteps. It will be a journey through Asia up snow-covered mountain peaks, down wild rivers and through burning deserts. Our objective is to use digital photography to document how the landscape, culture and people in these areas have changed over a century.

IRAN: FROM DAMAVAND TO DESERT 2013
The Iran expedition will take six weeks and start with a ski ascent of Mount Damavand (5 671 meter), the highest peak in the Middle East, successfully ascended by Hedin in 1890. The rest of the expedition will follow Hedin’s route from 1906 by four wheel drive cars from Tehran and south east throughout the country to the border of Pakistan. The route will include a crossing of the central salt desert of Iran.

SVEN HEDIN (1865 – 1952) 
Sven Hedin was a Swedish explorer and geographer that devoted his life to exploring Central Asia and Tibet, mapping such a large unexplored territory that it has never been paralleled in history. Hedin made two journeys to Persia and four expeditions to Central Asia, discovering the Transhimalaya, the sources of Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej Rivers and long lost cities in the deserts of the Tarim Basin. Sven Hedin (1865 – 1952) was a Swedish explorer and geographer that devoted his life to exploring Central Asia and Tibet. He spent almost 20 years in Asia, mapping such a large unexplored territory that it has never been paralleled in history. The purpose of the present project is to make a series of five expeditions following in the tracks of Hedin, covering his expeditions to Persia, Central Asia and Tibet 1886 – 1935. The plan is to make one expedition each year, starting with Iran in 2013. Our objective is to travel in the footsteps of Hedin, with the help of his maps, diaries and photographs, and follow up on his geographical and ethnographical observations as well as repeating some of his most spectacular adventures. Like Hedin did we will capture the landscape, villages and towns we travel through and the people we meet, but with digital photography and videography. Hedin’s collection of more than 7000 photographs has been buried for over a hundred years in the archives of the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. The large undertaking of digitizing these old glass plates have only just begun and we are the first to take full advantage of this unique material. We will search for the exact locations, where Hedin’s photographs were taken, in order to capture new images that precisely match the old ones. This lets us visually document the changes of these areas during the last century. Sven Hedin’s life as an explorer is one of the greatest adventure stories of all time. We will convey our results and Hedin’s story to the public in a groundbreaking new way, with interactive and geographically oriented media powered by Google Earth that will set a new standard for virtual exploration of historical and modern adventures.