Currently at our Permanent Museum near Tsuglagkhang Temple in Mcleod Ganj, we have displayed our exhibition 'A Long Look Homeward'.

A Long Look Homeward:

In 1949 China invaded Tibet. The occupation was accompanied by policies and actions intended to wipe out the Tibetan identity and traditional ways of life. More than a million Tibetans died as a result of the occupation, victims of fighting, hunger, executions and labor camps. Spiritual and material treasures were robbed, burned, destroyed and are lost forever. Tibet's forests were felled and her sacred lakes polluted. Tibet became a vast military base and a nuclear waste site. A policy of resettlement of Chinese immigrants in Tibet is turning Tibetans into a minority in their own land. The mere survival of the Tibetan culture and identity is now threatened.

The terrors of occupation forced many to flee their homeland. Most of the refugees escaped Tibet on a perilous exodus on foot through the Himalayan ranges and brought little with them but their bitter memories.

'A Long Look Homeward' is an exhibition based on these memories. Its curators are eleven representatives of the Tibetan community in exile. They have told their own personal stories, interwoven with the story of their nation and have selected visual representations of their memories.

'A Long Look Homeward' manifests the nostalgia of the older generation of Tibetans to return to their birth land. The younger generations of Tibetans, though born in alien land and who are yet to see their fatherland are also eager to breathe the air and wind of the country which was occupied by the communist China long before they were born.

The exhibition is a fabric of symbols, visuals and narratives that weave together a collective consciousness of memory, commemoration and hope. These stories take you, the visitor, on a journey- depicting the darkness of invasion, destruction and oppression, shedding light on the magnificent past of Tibet and expressing hopes for its future