ROBERT RAMSER PHOTOGRAPHY

It is a small Himalayan kingdom whose king had instituted Happiness as a model of development.

While traveling through Bhutan, where I lived, during popular festivals, I met a small world of innocent characters, come from their mountain village, dressed in their best clothes. The men wore a long dress tight at the waist over knee-high socks. Girls and boys had the same first name, assigned by an astrologer lama. Are the Bhutanese happy? But what is Happiness? What is behind the scenes? Opinion polls and statistics show that the socio-economic situation has improved in recent years, but, for many citizens, the modern world too often boils down to the appearance of the small screen, the internet and social networks...

By making these images, I wanted to give a moment of importance to each of the characters who agreed to pose for me in front of the neutral background of a wall exposed to the north or of a thanka canvas that I always carried with me.