Video of a person reading aloud while seated before a large boulder and plants. A dramyin plays in the background, and the musician’s hands are briefly visible. A second voice soon replaces the first narrator.
Sacrifice to the Seaworm
Sequence from Sacrifice to the Seaworm
Soojin Chang in collaboration with myself and Jade O’Belle
Nov 18 2022-Jan 22 2023 at Leeds Art Gallery
Sacrifice to the Seaworm is a new multi-part film installation that remaps an interior landscape to the processing of pain and violence through the vehicle of sacrificial practices. Formed collaboratively with Tenzin Mingyur Paldron and Jade O’Belle, the exhibition features Paldron’s work on self-immolation and suffering which follows a historic letter and parable shared by peace activist and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh and the actions of 170 Tibetans.
Video summary: This 18 minute video features an adaptation of the essay “Virtue and the Remaking of Suffering” (2012), which I wrote at the invitation of academic editors. I was a second-year PhD student at the time, and my fellow Tibetans had recently begun self-immolating.
Filmed by Tsewang Lhamo
Co-narrated by Tenzin Tsomo
Music by Tsejin Bhotia Khando
Scroll down for a transcript of these two video sequences.
A person reads aloud while seated before a boulder and plants.
Transcript from video sequences: “In an old Buddhist tale, three princes encounter a starving tigress in the forest with her young. The youngest prince remains with the family of tigers as his elder brothers leave to search for food. Alone, he witnesses the suffering and frailty of the mother and cubs. […]
Lama Soepa, one of 170 Tibetans to self-immolate since 2009, recounts this parable in an audio recorded message explaining his act to "all the six million Tibetans, including those living in exile.” Nearly fifty years earlier, Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh shared the same story in a letter to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. to explain acts of self-immolation in Vietnam.”