In a time when concerns for free expression and human rights are ever
present, we can be inspired by the individuals who bravely take action. Individuals
like photographer Tsering Dorje who, in the 1960s, captured and preserved haunting
images of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet—a period that has been erased from the
Chinese government’s official historical records. The stunning exhibit Forbidden Memory makes these photographs
physically present to an American audience for the first time. The exhibit will
be on display at New Haven’s City Gallery from October 3 through October 27, with an Opening
Reception on Thursday, October 3, from 5 to 7 PM.
For the past two
years, William Frucht, a City Gallery artist, has been working with Tsering Dorje’s daughter
Tsering Woeser; Susan Chen,
translator of the book Forbidden Memory: Tibet During the Cultural Revolution; and Tibet scholar Robert Barnett to bring
these important and shocking photographs to an American audience. As Frucht explains,
“Tsering Dorje’s photographs are important for everyone who cares about free expression
and human rights. They are amazing, beautiful images that speak the truth about
a time that has been kept a state secret. I want people to have the opportunity
to see them in person.”
Tsering Dorje
was just 13 when the Chinese army invaded his country in 1950. He was pressed into
service, remained a soldier, and was a mid-level officer when his supervisors made
him one of the army’s official photographers, sometime during the 1960s. This was
the time of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when the Chinese government, which had already
driven the Dalai Lama into exile, began destroying temples and monasteries, forcing
religious leaders to undergo re-education, and trying to eliminate all traces of
culture or religion. Dorje photographed political rallies, military parades, “revolutionary
actions,” and what are called “struggle sessions,” in which religious and cultural
leaders, shopkeepers and landlords were forced into the streets and publicly humiliated.
Dorje was just
one of many official photographers, but he did something none of the others did.
He bought extra rolls of film on the black market, and rather than give everything
he shot to the authorities, he kept some rolls for himself.
After his death
in 1991, his daughter Tsering Woeser organized her father’s collection of photographs
and published them as a book, Forbidden Memory:
Tibet During the Cultural Revolution, through a Taiwanese publisher in 2006.
To understand the sensation it caused, you must understand how secretive the Chinese
government has been about this period of Tibetan history. Almost nothing about the
Cultural Revolution in Tibet has been allowed to appear. Films, books, and dramas
don’t mention it; the resumes of officials who served there are either blank for
that period or else contain carefully constructed fictions. Official histories start
in 1979, as if everything that happened before that date had been erased; schoolbooks
mention the “ten bad years” but otherwise say nothing. Photographs are especially
rare. All of the work of the other official photographers in Tibet at that time
is hidden in secret archives, if it still exists.
The City Gallery
exhibit Forbidden Memory is your chance
to see Tsering Dorje’s images and the story they tell of a time of politically inspired
madness and destruction.
The exhibit is free and open to the public. City Gallery
is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Thursday
- Sunday, 12 noon - 4pm. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org,
www.city-gallery.org.
