A Bangkok exhibition exploring state violence and resistance, which included artists from Tibet and Hong Kong, was altered underneath stress by officers on the Chinese language Embassy in Thailand.
A photograph of a poster for the exhibition that was blacked out amid stress from Chinese language officers.
Tibetan and Uyghur flags have been blacked out and a graphic evaluating China to Israel was faraway from the exhibition.
The curators of the exhibition fled the nation after officers from the Chinese language Embassy and Thai police visited the museum, in accordance with Reuters and one of many censored artists, trans Tibetan artist Tenzin Mingyur Paldron, who goes by the moniker Doc Tenzin.
“The name Tibet is politicized, and that includes Tibetan names,” Tenzin instructed Hyperallergic.
Photographs taken after the modifications have been made underneath stress from Chinese language officers present that the names of 4 individuals — Uyghur artist Mukaddas Mijit, duo Clara Cheung and Gun Cheng Yee Man from Hong Kong, and Doc Tenzin — have been blacked out.
Hyperallergic has tried to contact the curators who’ve fled Thailand. Doc Tenzin didn’t blame BACC for the exhibition alterations, and mentioned he believed that the middle had executed their greatest to mitigate the scenario.
A graphic evaluating China and Israel was eliminated.
Doc Tenzin, who was born a refugee in India and moved to the US as a toddler, mentioned that seven objects in his mixed-media set up have been altered underneath stress from Chinese language officers. Uyghur and Tibetan flags have been blacked out, he mentioned, however different flags within the set up, together with Palestinian, Rohingya, Haitian, and Sudanese flags, weren’t. Tenzin added that three movies he labored on, together with Take heed to Indigenous Folks (A Trans Tibetan Scholar and Survivor Speaks on the Dalai Lama), footage he edited of a multi-hour demonstration by LGBTQ+ Tibetans in New York Metropolis, and a brief animated movie he wrote about listening to nature have been all eliminated.
A graphic by artist Liz Hee relating China and Israel’s surveillance and repression of Muslim communities within the international locations’ respective occupied territories was additionally censored, the artist mentioned.
Doc Tenzin’s movies have been faraway from the exhibition.
Tenzin defined in a press release that his 12-minute conversational movie Take heed to Indigenous Folks explored the roots of a controversial viral 2023 video through which the Dalai Lama asks an Indian boy to “suck” his tongue. Doc Tenzin claims that the footage was “spliced” and offered maliciously by an nameless Chinese language supply to media.
“Who are museums for? They should be for the people, not for dictators of any ideology,” Tenzin instructed Hyperallergic.
“When museums are unfairly pressured like BACC has been, the people must speak up for protection of the arts and artists. They must let the powers that be know this is unacceptable,” Tenzin continued. “More importantly, they must send a message to censoring governments that these works will be seen, they will be heard, they will be discussed.”
Hyperallergic has reached out to different artists within the present, the Thai Ministry of International Affairs, and BACC for remark.
