Vaibhav Kaul (born 1991) is a Himalayan geographer, environmental scholar, photographer and painter.

Career

Kaul is an alumnus of the Environmental Change Institute at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

, and the

University of Delhi The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

, and a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

and the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...

. He has investigated socio-environmental change and disaster risk in the glaciated high-mountain regions of Lahaul, Garhwal, Kumaon and

Sikkim Sikkim ( ; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Koshi Province of Nepal in the west, and West Bengal in the ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. His

landscape art Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coh ...

, visual geology and visual ethnography works have been exhibited and published in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Kaul collaborated with the film director Ross Harrison to make ''Facing the Mountain'', a 2016 documentary based on his research on change, risk, faith and resilience in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

. He appeared in ''An Awakening'' (2017) and ''Playing with Snowballs in the Prison of Time'' (2018), both poetic Anglo-Himalayan

art films Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

that he created with the cinematographer John Seddon as part of a video

autoethnography Autoethnography is a form of ethnographic research in which a researcher connects personal experiences to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. It is considered a form of qualitative and arts-based research. Autoeth ...

experiment. Kaul and Seddon also made ''Mountain, Priest, Son'', an award-winning 2018 film based on Kaul's geographical research into the metaphysics of environmental, economic and cultural risk amid rapid change in the

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaul, Vaibhav Living people Kashmiri people Kashmiri Pandits Indian geographers 21st-century Indian earth scientists Indian environmental scientists Indian nature photographers Indian landscape painters Alumni of the University of Oxford Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society 1991 births Himalayan studies