Flames of My Homeland: The Cultural Revolution and Modern Tibet Exhibition Opens
Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 12:00pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
FREE! Gallery open to Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.
Works by Tsering Dorje, Tsering Woeser, and Ian Boyden
Curated by Ian Boyden ’95, William Frucht, and Associate Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies Andrew Quintman
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Main Gallery
Tuesday, February 23 though Thursday, April 1, 2021
The works of Tsering Dorje and Tsering Woeser, father and daughter, document the ravages of Tibetan society brought by the Cultural Revolution and their ongoing effects in Lhasa today. Tsering Dorje (c. 1937–1991), a native Tibetan, served as an officer in the People’s Liberation Army. His black and white photographs provide a rare visual record of the violence perpetrated in Tibet during a period of book burnings, political rallies, and public struggle sessions. His daughter, widely known by the single name Woeser, is a poet, essayist, and photographer, and is a leading Tibetan public intellectual in China whose work ranges from political criticism to reflections on Buddhist belief and practice, and the challenges of inhabiting both Chinese and Tibetan cultural worlds. Together, Tsering Dorje and Woeser are among the most important contributors to our understanding of Tibetan religion, history, and culture in the post-Mao era.
The exhibition Flames of my Homeland brings together for the first time the work of this extraordinary father and daughter to highlight their contributions to Tibetan visual and literary culture, reveal new forms of Tibetan self-representation, and explore the complex interplay of artistic, political, and religious expression in contemporary China. The exhibition incorporates photographs by Tsering Dorje and Woeser, and a set of original collaborative works by Woeser and Ian Boyden ’95, featuring multimedia installations including Woeser’s poetry in her own voice, and the video The Birds Might Not Come. Boyden is a visual artist, poet, and translator who is completing an English translation of Woeser’s collected poems.
RELATED EVENTS
Flames of My Homeland Talk: Ian Boyden and William Frucht
Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 4:30pm EST
Register in advance for this webinar.
(After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.)
Exhibition curators Ian Boyden ’95—a visual artist, poet, translator—and William Frucht, Executive Editor for Political Science at Yale University Press, will discuss the lives of Tsering Dorje and Woeser, the intersections of art and politics, and the interpretation of photographs across geographic and cultural distance.
Artist Talk by Ian Boyden: Dearest Elephant—Collaborations between Ian Boyden and Tsering Woeser
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 4:30pm EST
Register in advance for this webinar.
(After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.)
Ian Boyden ’95—a visual artist, poet, and translator—will discuss his collaborations with the Tibetan poet and political dissident Tsering Woeser, focusing on works presented in the exhibition Flames of My Homeland on display in the Zilkha Gallery. Despite these two artist-writers never having met each other in person, they have succeeded in creating a compelling body of work together including translations, films, and site-specific installations.
Burning for Buddhism: Robert Barnett and Barbara Demick
Tuesday, March 30, 2021 at 4:30pm EST
Register in advance for this webinar.
(After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.)
A conversation on the role of art, memory, and resistance in Tibet with scholar of modern Tibetan history and politics Robert Barnett, Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University, London and former Director of Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University; and journalist Barbara Demick, former Beijing Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times, and author of Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town (2020).
Photography and Tibet: Widening the Frame with Clare Harris
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 4:30pm EST
Register in advance for this webinar.
(After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.)
A lecture on the history of the photographic representation of Tibet, exploring the wider context for Tsering Dorje’s photographs from the Cultural Revolutionary period, with Clare Harris, Professor of Visual Anthropology and Curator for Asian Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, UK and author of Photography and Tibet.
Photographs by Tsering Dorje. Used by permission of Tsering Woeser.