Sarin & Sonam: Burning Against the Dying of the Light

10 TO 31 DECEMBER

KHOJ INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS’ ASSOCIATION

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam are an Indian-Tibetan filmmaking duo, and their new multimedia exhibit explores political protest and conflict in Tibet. Usually they only present work they have personally filmed, but they have departed from that precedent for this exhibit, which also features footage shot by others—including amateurs with mobile cameras. The most striking videos in the show are, undoubtedly, those of Tibetans committing suicide by burning themselves alive in political protest.

To date, 149 Tibetans are known to have self-immolated, with most committing this act after 2008, when the region erupted in protest against the Chinese government. Watching living human bodies being consumed by fire is terribly mesmerising, and most of the witnesses captured on these films respond with shock. However, it is even more striking and surreal to see some other witnesses not reacting to the self-immolators at all.

- Harper Sutherland