Indonesian explorer Lorne Blair dies at 49
JAKARTA (JP): On June 6th, while recovering from a broken leg in a Bali hospital, Lorne Blair suffered a fatal heart attack. His death, at the early age of 49, removes from the Indonesian scene one of its most distinguished chroniclers, and a popular resident of Bali for the past twenty years.
Lorne Blair was as Englishman in the tradition of Livingstone and Wallace, whose curiosity about our world led him to explore its remotest corners with a fine disregard for risk.
As an author, lecturer, photographer and film-maker, Lorne will probably be best remembered for Ring of Fire, a book co- authored with his brother Dr. Lawrence Blair, and later made into a television film series under the same title. Assembled over ten years in the face of dire physical hardship and the slenderest of purses, this award-winning documentary earned worldwide admiration for its insights into Indonesia's least known regions.
Lorne's film Lempad of Bali, co-directed with John Darling, has a permanent place in the ethnography of Bali. In 1991, a record of an arduous foray into the interior of Kalimantan, with photographer Rio Helmi, was published under the title River of Gems - A Borneo Journal. In the last few months of his life Lorne was putting the finishing touches to his latest Bali film, Cycles of The Soul.
Born in England, his upbringing was in Mexico. At the age of 14 he joined an expedition to an almost unexplored area of the country. Lorne Blair's professional career started as an assistant to Bob Cundy, an independent ethnographer who produced adventure films shot all over the world. This hair-raising experience led to a position with the BBC, where his filming techniques were refined.
In 1972 he left London to embark on his exploration of Indonesia, the country that was to become his home for the rest of his life. Numerous profitable career opportunities were offered once Lorne's work achieved recognition. He turned them down, preferring to remain in his eccentrically organic cottage near Dewa Batuan's community of artists in Pengosekan, where he was surrounded by Balinese friends.
His brother recalls that Lorne's first report, from a French boarding school at the age of four, consisted of two words, folle independence, which translates roughly as "independence to the point of lunacy." A fitting epitaph perhaps to this genial giant, with the unkempt beard and signature monocle, whose humor and daring enriched the lives of his friends.
Lorne leaves a daughter Xenia and her mother Sophie. He is survived by his mother Lydia, who first introduced him to Indonesia in the 1960s, and his brother Lawrence.