Can a work of art tell a story in the immersive way that a book does? Is it possible to bring your viewers to another part of the world, allowing them to experience it for themselves? In this installation, the viewer travels with me to Bhutan, a Buddhist kingdom in the Himalaya mountains. Here the government practices an economic policy called Gross National Happiness (GNH), and the people revere a divine madman by painting phallic imagery for good luck. Both of these, experienced during my trip to Bhutan in the summer of 2013, influence this work, which depicts the hike to the country’s most iconic landmark, Taktsang Monastery, better known as the Tiger’s Nest.
My mixed media has been augmented here by using Himalayan papers and painting with mineral pigments, as promotion of national culture is one of the pillars of GNH. I’ve depicted the hike to the Tiger’s Nest using seven maps, which climb the wall. In its current iteration, the audience views the work from a raised distance, the edge of the stage in MCAD’s MFA gallery, to allow them the experience of viewing the monastery from a scenic viewpoint across the valley. Miniature prayer flags dot the surface of the maps, and full-sized flags define the boundaries of the experience I have remembered for my viewers. However, the flags do not carry the traditional prayers written in Tibet’s uchen script, and the wind horses and Bodhisattvas have been replaced with Drukpa Kunley’s phallus, the Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom. It is my hope that by celebrating and sharing my experiences with other cultures that people who have not had the privilege of traveling can understand others whom they have yet to meet.
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Becky Mutrux 