TIBET / INDIA

rapchi Llegy, <U17. Single-channel video with sound,

16 minutes 44 seconds.

Supported by Contour Biennale,

the Gujral Foundation, and Argos Lentre of Art and Media.

Drapchi Elegy weaves together vignettes from the everyday life of Namdol Lhamo, an anonymous exile living in Brussels who happens to be one of the famous Singing Nuns of Drapchi, a group of 14 nuns imprisoned in Tibet in the early 1990s for peacefully demonstrating against Chinese rule. Namdol lhamo's sentence, along with that of her companions, was further increased when they were discovered to be secretly recording protest songs in Drapchi Prison and smuggling the tapes to the outside world. She spent a total of 12 years in prison.

The video is shown in conjunction with: four banners depicting the Tibetan lyrics of one of the songs from Drapchi Prison, along with their translations in English and Turkish; photographs of Drapchi prison; the court order sentencing the 14 nuns to additional prison terms.