REIMAGINE: HIMALAYAN ART NOW

EXHIBITION (MARCH 15–OCTOBER 6, 2024)

Co-curated Rubin Museum’s first major exhibition of contemporary Himalayan art. Through a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, sound, video, installation, performance, and more, artists explore their personal and collective histories and call attention to themes such as the fluidity of identity, spiritual practices, displacement, sense of belonging, grief, memory, and reclamation. The artists also offer critical and thoughtful commentary on issues facing humanity across time.

Sacred Statue Casting

Executed post-production for Lost-Wax Metal Casting, an instructive film on the lost-wax technique of hollow metal casting. Mastered by Newar artists of the Kathmandu Valley, lost-wax metal casting is an ancient practice that thrives into the present. You can learn more about this process from the artisans at Foundry Foundation Nepal. Film produced in collaboration with Pranab Joshi.

Making of a Thangka

Filmed & produced Making of a Thangka Painting, 2022. The short film features Tibetan artist Buchung Nubgya, who demonstrates the process of making a traditional Tibetan thangka — Tibetan Buddhist paintings on cotton & silk appliqué that date back to the 11th century.

Sacrifice to the Seaworm

Filmed & co-produced video elements of Sacrifice to the Seaworm, a multi-part film installation that remaps an interior landscape to the processing of pain and violence through the vehicle of sacrificial practices. On view at Leeds Art Gallery 2022-23, the exhibition description can be found here. Co-collaborators include Soojin Chang, Tenzin Mingyur Paldron, and Jade O’Belle.

Queens Pride

Filmed & produced a short for Tibetan Equality Project’s first Queens Pride Parade (2022) in Jackson Heights, NYC. The short features the words of visionary Black lesbian poet & activist Audre Lorde, illuminating the importance of solidarity among marginalized peoples in the struggle for justice and liberation.

Bon Children’s Welfare Center

Filmed & produced a short featuring the Bon Children’s Welfare Center in Dolanji, India. Located in a largely Tibetan Bon community, Bon Children’s Welfare Center is an orphanage run by Menri Monastery. Bon is a minoritized Indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet, and its followers live across the greater Himalayan region in Tibet, India, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan.

HEALING PRACTICES

EXHIBITION (MARCH 2022–JANUARY 2023)

Filmed & co-produced Healing Practices: Stories from Himalayan Americans for the Rubin Museum of Art. As a community advisor, I supported the exhibition in presenting the diverse ways that Tibetan Buddhist art & practice have served as roadmaps to well-being. Centering themes of prevention, healing, and longevity, the exhibition highlights how these living traditions are transformed and adopted by today’s world, inspiring visitors to reflect on their own healing journeys.

Mystery of Life

Filmed & co-produced Mystery of Life, a short documentary showcasing Tibetan artist Rabkar Wangchuk’s journey as a young monk in India to his current roots in New York City. Through over forty of Rabkar la’s original pieces, the film highlights his unique, playful style that merges traditional Tibetan art with contemporary, pop culture influences.

Filming for Tibet

Directed, filmed, and co-produced Filming for Tibet, a video campaign featuring Tibetan filmmaker and ex-political prisoner Dhondup Wangchen. Video animation courtesy of Tenzin Yougyal.

Yakpo Collective: Spotlight Series

Led production of Yakpo Collective’s The Spotlight Series, which highlights nine diasporic artists’ stories. A non-funded, community-based documentary project, the Spotlight Series aims to make contemporary Tibetan art accessible & empower young Tibetans to pursue art.

Yakpo Collective: Transcending Boundaries

Filmed, produced, designed, and co-curated Yakpo Collective’s virtual exhibition: Transcending Boundaries. The digital exhibition presents select work by Tibetan artists inside and outside of Tibet. The theme aims to expand discursive space for artists to address what boundaries mean to them via diverse perspectives, methodologies, and aesthetic languages. To learn more about the virtual exhibit, click here.