Kafkanistan

This book explores the world of present-day travel and tourism to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan with words and images based on actual happenings. The journal, Kafkanistan, explores how we are all influenced by the media. Believing that many of us will never visit the region and all we know about it is what we read in the newspapers and what we see on television, the authors were interested in perceptions based on the media versus their reality as visitors. These are, through first-hand experience and interviews with the local people and the objects in their lives, documented in this book. However, this is not a straightforward journal, because through their inquiry, the travellers discovered that the "real" world of the tourist this region has, is so bizarre, that it is a surreal one.Thus each man adopted an identity, to better integrate in his travels through the universe of "Kafkanistan," to aptly describe their experiences. Here is an image of a world that is based on and which represents actual happenings that are so unusual that they seem to be the work of fiction. AUTHOR: Lukas Birk is an Austrian visual artist and explorer with a focus on Central and East Asia. He exhibits his work regularly around the globe and has set up arts programs in China and Indonesia. Born in Ireland, Sean Foley specialises in visual anthropology and works as a researcher on art projects in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Greece. ILLUSTRATIONS: 80 colour & 150 b/w