Nestled along a seemingly random road on a hill in Staten Island, NY sits the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art—an amazing building designed to replicate the Himalayan style of architecture often seen in the East. Formed in 1945, it’s also the first strictly-Tibet museum in the world before the Communist Revolution.
Factual tidbits aside this building and its grounds, though small and humble, are just beautiful. I had the pleasure of visiting this museum when I recently visited the borough to participate in an art show. With a garden unfolding behind it, seating and meditation areas, and nature-friendly environment, it was easy to feel at ease in such a tranquil spot. It would have also been easy to sit outside all day enjoying this atmosphere if it wasn’t for the exquisite and visitor-friendly displays set up inside. Made of stone, the building houses many statues representing physical yet spiritual representations of Buddhist symbols and figures. An alter takes up an entire wall with graduated layers of such stoic pieces. If that wasn’t enough however, the current art exhibit took my breath away. I saw so many similarities to a Japanese form of Buddhism, Shinnyo-en, for which I once worked at an art exhibit that displayed works of art by its founder Shinjo Ito.
Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion by Phil Borges (With text by the Dalai Lama and an Epilogue by Night’s Eli Weisel, you know you can’t go wrong). Some of the most remarkable and human photographs I’ve ever seen showed beautifully-taken images of Tibetan refugees who escaped the unspeakable circumstances of their region to live in simplistic and peaceful living. From infants to the elderly, each black and white photo was accompanied by only a sentence, but these few words told so much about their lives and stories if the images hadn’t already. I stood in front of this girl’s picture, my eyes connecting with hers, for quite some time.
Jigme, 8 and Sonam, 18 months
“Jigme and Sonam are sisters whose nomadic family had just come down from the Himalayan highlands to their 16,500 ft. winter camp on the Tibetan Plateau. When I gave Jigme a Polaroid of herself she looked at it, squealed and ran into her tent. I assumed that this was one of the only times she had seen herself since her family did not own a mirror.”
One more fascinating fact about this museum is that it currently has the only existing not-destroyed mandala in the world. Traditionally, these tools for prayer are destroyed immediately after their use; however, during his visit in 1991, the Dalai Lama himself gave permission for this particular mandala to temporarily remain intact at the museum until otherwise notified. Check it out now because chances are that the museum will have little to no warning before it is to be ruined. I had the honor of seeing this mandala as well as standing in front of it, in the exact same spot the Dalai Lama did during his visit, in a room surrounded by priceless works of art and the stories of so many brave and inspiration people. Surreal indeed.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Ren // Oct 3, 2009 at 7:11 pm
This is fantastic. Asian art is under-represented at the university level, as well as at the museum and social level. This is wonderful.
2 admin // Oct 8, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Thank you! And I completely agree. I’ve always had an appreciation for Asian art, but I think that maybe its simplicity causes it to be overlooked by some!
Leave a Comment