The Shadow Cricus: Exhibition at the Kochi Muziris Biennale is about an armed struggle for Tibetan autonomy

Published : Feb 09, 2023 10:25 IST In 1998, India-based Tibetan filmmaker Tenzing Sonam and his partner Ritu Sarin directed a BBC documentary called The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet, which opened a secret chapter in the history of Tibet’s resistance to Chinese occupation: about a bloody guerrilla war that continued from 1956 to the late 1960s, funded, trained, and supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, the US’ foreign intelligence service. It has reached Kochi now: the exhibition titled “Shadow Circus: A Personal Archive of Tibetan Resistance ” is part of the fifth edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale. Appeal to the US “Shadow Circus” opens with a typewritten nine-page letter by Tibetan resistance leader Andrug Gompo Tashi, addressed to “the peace and freedom loving President of the United States of America”. It details the insidious ways in which the Chinese government made overtures to Tibet, eventually suppressing Tibetan autonomy, that led to the 14th Dalai Lama’s escape to India in 1959.