Join The Explorers Club on Monday, January 9th to dive into the intricacies of the sacred.

For the past forty years, Chris Rainier has been in search of the sacred and the very meaning of sacredness. Across all seven continents, he has sought out and photographed spiritual landscapes and sacred religious sites – from Tibetan monasteries high in the Himalayas to the ancient rock art lost in the deserts of the American Southwest, from the haunting sand dunes of the Sahara to the towering icebergs of Antarctica. What is sacred in our lives?

To a backdrop of powerful and haunting photographs Rainier explores the meaning of what is sacred, what does sacredness mean to an Atheist, to a Buddhist, to a Muslim, to an indigenous leader , or to Native American elder. Join Chris on a journey into a sacred world of spiritual cultures, and sacred sites around the globe.

This lecture will be streaming live here on Explorers.org, our YouTube Channel, and our Facebook Live — Monday, January 9th at 7:00 pm ET.

RESERVATIONS

This will be an in-person lecture at Explorers Club Headquarters, and we are opening a number of tickets to guests.

In-person tickets are $15 for Members and $30 for the General Public.

Check-in will begin at 6:00 pm, with a beer and wine reception from 6:00 – 7:00 pm.

Speakers

Chris Rainier

Chris Rainier is a documentary photographer/filmmaker – who is highly respected for his documentation of endangered cultures and traditional languages around the globe. In 2002 he was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award by the Explorers Club for his efforts on cultural preservation, and in 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society of London/UK -specializing in cultural preservation. From 2001 to 2015 Rainier worked for National Geographic Society under the Missions Program focused on the preservation and documentation of traditional knowledge and endangered languages. Under his tenure with the National Geographic Society as a Fellow he has been the co-founder and co-director of both the Enduring Voices Language Project and Director of the All Roads Photography Program, designed to support indigenous groups with modern technology desiring to document their traditional culture and create sustainable solutions to preserve the planet in the 21st Century.

He is the Director of The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation – a global program focused on preserving Biodiversity and Traditional Cultural Knowledge.

Rainier has completed photographic projects for the United Nations, UNESCO, Amnesty International, Conservation International, the Smithsonian Institution, Time Magazine, the New York Times, LIFE Magazine, CNN, BBC and the National Geographic Society. Rainier has photographed global culture, conflict, famine, and war in such places as: Somalia, Sarajevo/Bosnia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Iraq for LIFE, TIME Magazine, National Geographic – and for NPR Radio.

In the early 1980’s Rainier was Ansel Adams’ last photographic assistant. During his tenure with the noted photographer Rainier helped Ansel Adams with the use of his photography to help conserve many of the National Parks in North America Rainier went on to collaborate with UNESCO and IUCN on a global project using photography to preserve endangered wilderness areas around the world.