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The Museum on the Roof of the World

By (author) Clare E. Harris
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Published: 13th Nov 2014
Dimensions: w 176mm h 251mm d 20mm
Weight: 640g
ISBN-10: 022621317X
ISBN-13: 9780226213170
Barcode No: 9780226213170
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Synopsis
For millions of people around the world, Tibet is a domain of undisturbed tradition; the Dalai Lama, spiritual guide. By contrast, the Tibet Museum opened in Lhasa by the Chinese in 1999 was designed to reclassify Tibetan objects as cultural relics and the Dalai Lama as obsolete. Suggesting that both these views are suspect, Clare E. Harris argues in The Museum on the Roof of the World that for the past one hundred and fifty years, British and Chinese collectors and curators have tried to convert Tibet itself into a museum, an image some Tibetans have begun to contest. This book is a powerful account of the museums created by, for, or on behalf of Tibetans and the nationalist agendas that have played out in them. Harris begins with the British public's first encounter with Tibetan culture in 1854. She then examines the role of imperial collectors and photographers in representations of the region and visits competing museums of Tibet in India and Lhasa. Drawing on fieldwork in Tibetan communities, she also documents the activities of contemporary Tibetan artists as they try to displace the utopian visions of their country prevalent in the West, as well as the negative assessments of their heritage common in China.

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"A highly readable discussion of the ways in which political power has shaped perceptions of Tibet and its material culture, and how contemporary Tibetans are appropriating the 'soft power' of art as a political tool.... Highly recommened." (Choice)"