MOA: Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images – MPMG Media Relations Campaigns

PRESS RELEASE

MOA’s World Premiere Exhibition Reimagines Past and Present Tibet Through Lens of Tibetan-Canadian Community in:
— Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images —

Exhibition highlights exploration and preservation of Tibet’s rich cultural heritage through Tibetan diaspora

VANCOUVER, BC — The Museum of Anthropology at UBC (MOA) presents the world premiere of Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images, on display at MOA from November 20, 2025–March 29, 2026. Curated by Dr. Fuyubi Nakamura, Curator, Asia at MOA and Associate Professor in UBC Department of Asian Studies, in collaboration with Tibetan-Canadian community members and artists, the bilingual exhibition explores Tibet’s rich cultural heritage alongside its current political context, through the lenses and voices of the Tibetan diasporic community. The exhibition will uplift the efforts of the Tibetan-Canadian community to maintain their cultural identity in the face of challenges associated with the loss of their homeland, which has been under forced occupation by China since 1951. Featuring historic photographs, letters, objects, and belongings from a pre-occupied Tibet, as well as photography, an installation piece, and two short films by Tibetan-Canadian artists Lodoe Laura and Kunsang Kyirong, Entangled Territories will reimagine Tibet and its future through the perspectives of the Tibetan-Canadian community.

“Canada is home to one of the largest concentrations of Tibetans outside of Asia, including an active community in Vancouver, who have lived in the region since 1971,” says Dr. Nakamura. “Entangled Territories explores the lived experience of these Tibetan-Canadians, for whom the location and status of their homeland remain a pressing issue. The exhibition demonstrates the complex duality of how young Tibetan-Canadians are reshaping their identity and self-image to reflect a shifting culture that is more than 70 years removed from its homeland, while actively striving to maintain their connection to their ancestral heritage through cultural preservation, such as dance, language, and spiritual practices.”

Entangled Territories will feature materials from MOA’s collection and archives, coupled with contemporary works from Tibetan-Canadian artists. Archival items feature letters and photographs from MOA’s Eric Parker Archival Collection, which includes photographs and correspondence from British military Lieutenant Colonel Eric Parker who helped train Tibet’s newly established modern army from 1918 to 1921. Parker corresponded with members of the Tibetan government, including the 13th Dalai Lama. After relocating to Canada in retirement, Parker’s daughter, Mary Noble, donated her father’s collection to MOA in 2005.

The exhibition will also feature three beautifully crafted textile items, including two robes and one blanket from MOA’s Yuthok Collection, with reflections on the pieces from several Tibetan-Canadian secondary students active in the local community. The Yuthok family are descendants of the family of the 10th Dalai Lama, and donated their family’s heirlooms to MOA upon their migration to Canada, in the hopes of raising awareness of Tibet’s rich history and culture.

Tibetan-Canadian artist Lodoe Laura, of mixed Tibetan and British-Canadian heritage, will display four works as part of the exhibition. Based in Toronto, Laura’s work deals with themes of ancestry, identity, and tradition. Colonized/Colonizer (2015) showcases a pair of photos created in the artist’s studio, mostly with objects borrowed from her parents’ home, which reflect on the colonial conditions inside Tibet, as well as her own personal experience of living on the lands of other Indigenous peoples in Canada. On display will be 12 selections from the larger installation work 169 (2025), hand-printed portraits of the 169 people who have self-immolated in the past few decades in protest of the conditions inside the Tibetan Autonomous Region and beyond. The portraits were printed using handmade charcoal ink from the incense used in Tibetan Buddhist smoke-offering rituals, collected by the artist and her Tibetan father.

Two additional photographic series relate to one another. Pala (2016) was created when Laura lived with her father (“Pala” in Tibetan) in a monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where her parents met and where she spent much of her childhood. Pala and Me (2016) features photos of the artist and her father in a place special to the two of them – a location in Nepal where you can see into Tibet on a clear day.

The exhibition also features two short films by Kunsang Kyirong, a first-generation Tibetan-Canadian filmmaker and artist from Vancouver. Through support from New York’s Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, Kyirong developed the film Letters from Tibet, based on the artist’s research into MOA’s archival materials from the Eric Parker Collection. The film places Parker’s photographs from his time in Tibet alongside clips from Frank Capra’s 1937 film Lost Horizon, which imagined a fictional utopia in the mountains of Tibet. By combining archival documents with cinematic representations, Letters from Tibet explores how Tibet has been recorded, mythologized, and interpreted over time.

A second Kyirong film is an animation called Yarlung (2020), which tells the story of three children in a rural village who experience relief from their grief over the death of a loved one through their connection to the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The film blends fiction with non-fiction, as the artist draws on her personal experiences as a child visiting a small Tibetan refugee settlement in Northeast India where her mother was born.

Following China’s Communist Revolution, Tibet was forced to surrender its independence and has been under China’s occupation for more than seven decades. After a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama – Tibet’s political and spiritual leader – fled to Dharamshala, India, where the internationally renowned leader has remained ever since. The political landscape has forced the continued displacement and global relocation of tens of thousands of Tibetans to places like India, Nepal, North America, and Europe. Many of those who identify as Tibetan were neither born in Tibet or have ever lived there.

MOA will celebrate Entangled Territories’ opening night on Thursday, November 20, 2025, from 6pm to 9pm, with free museum admission for all. Students from the Lodoe Kunphel Tibetan Language School, BC will perform a dance to welcome guests. To learn more about the exhibition, as well as ancillary events, visit moa.ubc.ca

About MOA (moa.ubc.ca)
The Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) is world-renowned for its collections, research, teaching, public programs and community connections. Its mission is to inspire an understanding of and respect for world arts and cultures. Today, Canada’s largest teaching museum is located in a spectacular Arthur Erickson-designed building overlooking mountains and sea. MOA’s collections consist of more than 50,000 cultural objects and artworks created in Asia, Africa, Oceania, Europe and the Americas — with a focus on the Pacific Northwest. MOA’s Multiversity Galleries: Ways of Knowing provide public access to many of these works. The Audain Gallery and the O’Brian Gallery, MOA’s feature exhibition spaces, showcase travelling exhibitions, as well as those developed in-house.

LISTING INFORMATION	MOA presents *Entangled Territories: Tibet Through Images*
Dates:	November 20, 2025 to March 29, 2026
Address:	Museum of Anthropology University of British Columbia 6393 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC
Website:	moa.ubc.ca