Framing change: Hunza (Pakistan) in treble vision – 1930s and 1990s

Abstract

This visual essay uses photographs to document socio-political shifts in the lives of people living in the high Karakoram valley of Hunza in the Northern Areas – an unofficial fifth province of Pakistan. More than 60 years separate the 1930 photographs from those of the 1990s. The author brings them together, however, in thematic compositions of (I) Political Rule (II) Economy, (III) Bazaar (market), and (IV) A Public View of Themselves. Each thematic set contains a photo taken in the 1930s (Single Vision), its counterpart made in the 1990s (Double Vision), and a trend-setting activity in the 1990s (Treble Vision). Treble Vision replaces pursuits foregrounded in Single Vision, which retreat to background in Double Vision.