The Conservancy for Tibetan Art and Culture

Most Tibetan painting and sculpture, poetry and prose, and music and dance was produced for religious purposes or was infused with Buddhist themes. Tibetans’ first substantial introduction to non-Buddhist forms of Western art, literature, and music occurred when Tibetans fled from Chinese occupation in the 1950s. Within the last decade, some Tibetan artists and writers in refugee communities in the Indian subcontinent and the West have begun to express themselves using contemporary artistic themes and genres.

Amnye Machen Institute in Dharamsala, India, was founded in part to assist Tibetans in exploring new horizons in contemporary art, literature, and women’s studies. This work has included translating significant works of literature, such as Paine’s Common Sense, Orwell’s Animal Farm, and the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, from English into Tibetan. Amnye Machen also provides resources and studio space for painters and sculptors, and publishes the journals Lung-ta and High Asia for contemporary writers of Tibetan fiction and scholars of Tibetan society.

Some Tibetan musicians in North America and Europe mix traditional music with instruments such as the electric guitar and the Australian dijeridoo. Several Tibetans are publishing fiction, poetry, and comic strips in English, while Tibetan painters have begun to express their refugee experiences in art shown in galleries in North America and Europe.