Through the Lens of Lumír Jisl is a non-profit exhibit of photographs taken by the renowned Czech archaeologist, Lumír Jisl, in the course of his research expeditions to Mongolia in the 1950s and 1960s. Due to Jisl’s untimely death, most of these photographs were placed in his personal archives, remaining subsequently untouched. Now, however, nearly fifty years after they were taken, these invaluable photographs have been made available for public viewing by his family for the first time. The exhibit is organized by the Historical Institute of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences under the auspices of the ambassador of the Czech Republic, Ivana Grollová, PhD.
The opening of the exhibit was held in Ulaanbaatar on August 13 on the premises of the National Museum of Mongolia. This exhibition will also open in Prague at DOX, the Centre for Contemporary Art, in September 2014. The exhibit is comprised of approximately one hundred photographs, most of them in colour. These unique images vividly capture the reality of life in Mongolia at the time, including scenes from Buddhist monasteries (the vast majority of which were destroyed during the Communist repressions of the late 1930s; many monasteries, however, are currently being actively revived). Scenes of everyday life in Ulaanbaatar are widely represented, as well as many locales in central and north-eastern Mongolia. As an accompaniment to the exhibit, a catalogue was produced in both English and Mongolian.