SHADOW CIRCUS

After the Communist Chinese invasion of 1949 and its subsequent takeover in 1959, Tibet has been a country under occupation. Since then, resistance to Chinese rule, both inside Tibet and in exile, has been both unyielding and resilient, transforming over time in response to the changing situation in China and the shifting winds of geopolitical alignments. But little is still known of the guerrilla war that was fought from the mid-1950s to 1974 when thousands of Tibetans took up arms against the invading forces of China. 

A movement that spontaneously erupted in Tibet became entangled in global geopolitics when the CIA got involved in 1956. Code-named STCIRCUS, it was one of the CIA’s longest running covert operations until it was abruptly abandoned in the late 60s. The resistance collapsed in 1974 when its last stronghold on the Nepal-Tibet border was shut down by the Nepalese army. For reasons that have to do with both the covert nature of this operation and the fact that Tibet’s armed struggle sits uncomfortably with contemporary narratives of the non-violent nature of the movement, this episode has languished in the forgotten corners of recent Tibetan history.

Filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam have researched this story for many years, inspired by Tenzing’s late father, Lhamo Tsering, one of the leaders of the resistance and the key liaison between it and the CIA. Serving as Chief of Operations, he oversaw the activities of the resistance and at the same time, maintained an incredibly detailed archive of photographs, documents, letters and maps. 

The exhibition, SHADOW CIRCUS, re-evaluates the audiovisual material that Ritu and Tenzing gathered over the years, including Lhamo Tsering’s personal archives, and presents a re-edited version of their 1998 documentary – The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet – to create a more complete and complex mosaic of this still largely obscure story. The Cold War epoch is navigated within a third space, as an uneasy alliance beyond geopolitical power blocs and bilateral relations to examine forms of intelligence gathering, guerrilla warfare and clandestine resistance in Tibet, that continues to resonate today as part of an unfinished project of freedom. The filmmakers foreground the subjective position of an intermediary between the CIA and members of the resistance – Lhamo Tsering – wherein individual aspirations and national interests fail to provide a symmetrical historic trajectory. The unresolved nature of the militant image and its ethics of circulation become a potent focus of inquiry during this pivotal time in Tibet’s armed liberation movement and international alliance building that included one of the most networked intelligence agencies in the world, with its ultimate betrayal as the final act.

As Lhamo Tsering said in an interview shortly before his death, “In my opinion, I don’t see our armed struggle as something that was helpful only at a certain point in our history, something that is finished. I believe we should look at it as one chapter in our continuing struggle for freedom, one that still has some meaning.”

The inaugural version of SHADOW CIRCUS was curated by Natasha Ginwala and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with assistant curator Krisztina Hunya. It was co-produced by and exhibited at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin from 7 February to 10 March 2019, within the programme of the 14th Forum Expanded, 69th Berlinale. 

This is the first time SHADOW CIRCUS is on view in India.

Where: Art Gallery, Kamaladevi Complex
India International Centre, New Delhi
20 April to 1 May
When: Opening on 20 April 2022, 18:00; On View from 21 April to 1 May 2022, Daily 11:00 to 19:00

Organised by India International Centre. In collaboration with White Crane Films. With support from the International Campaign for Tibet

Collateral events include:
The Sweet Requiem (2019|91 minutes)
A dramatic feature film by Ritu Sarin & Tenzing Sonam
21 April 2022, 6:30 pm
CD Deshmukh Auditorium
Directors will be present

Exhibition walk-through with Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
23 April 2022, 5:30 pm
Art Gallery, Kamaladevi Complex
Ritu Sarin & Tenzing Sonam in conversation with Art Historian Latika Gupta
26 April 2022, 6:30 pm
Art Gallery, Kamaladevi Complex