June 2 – June 21, 1997

Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery

Presented by Joe Gibson.

Photographs taken in the People’s Republic of China, 1984.

In 1984, I was privileged to witness a highly unusual, almost unique, esoteric ceremony, a ‘Cham festival within the yellow-cap (dGe-lugs-pa) sect of Tibetan Buddhism. What makes this ceremony highly unusual is that it took place at Ta’er-si lamasery on the Tibetan Plateau, about 50 kilometres west of Xining in Q’ing-hai province in the People’s Republic of China. (As a student of literature, in true Orwellian spirit, I chose to “celebrate” 1984 by teaching and travelling in a totalitarian dictatorship, the People’s Republic of China.

~Joe Gibson, 1997