Thursday, June 4, 2009

Progress in Tibet Project

The teams from 1.Shanthi Road and Think Tibet have been meeting regularly to discuss, follow up and assign tasks.

We had made one visit to the Tibetan settlement at Bayalukuppe and had preliminary discussions with the Chief Representative there. We had a tour of the settlement and identified elements to be used in our exhibition. The Think Tibet team had also been collating information for a book publishing project and it gave us a head start to the project.

In the last few weeks, we have worked on

• Research – interviews of Tibetans in Bangalore and in neighboring settlements
• Travels to settlements for research and documentation
• Planning and design of the exhibition space
• Assigned all collaborators their tasks with deadlines.
• Collaborating with local artists and craftspeople for the exhibition
• Fabrication of material such as prayer wheel, terracotta lamps, wooden stands

We are also working towards a bi-lingual publication (English/Kannada (local language)).

We have contacted authors to translate important essays and poems on Tibet.
The Think Tibet Team visited Bayalukuppe – the Tibetan settlement, to finalize the Mandala painters, Flag makers and the handicrafts center.
1Shanthiroad was communicating with the Dharamshala settlement in North India to participate in the event. Unfortunately, currently they are preoccupied and unable to be part of this program.
We are working with the design team to finalize publicity material for the event. We are also hoping to raise a small amount to justify the excess cost of inviting monks to create the Mandala.
We are also collaborating with Bangalore Film Society(BFS) and Alliance Francaise in furthering this project in the early days of July month.


Images of the project can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/organize/?start_tab=one_set72157619228429080