Taking Tiger Mountain By Storm

This video redeploys recently acquired Chinese police footage of a large-scale raid on a small village in Central Tibet, converting it from a security apparatus archival record to a parody of what Communism means today in Tibet, and by extension, in China. Hundreds of armed police, paramilitary forces, attack dogs and armoured vehicles make a dawn raid on a sleeping village and make house to house search-and-arrests of suspected Tibetan nationalists, rudely awakening terrified men, women and boys. Accompanied by a stirring rendition of The East is Red, the video is edited like a scene from a war movie, intercut by propaganda text from the well-known Communist Chinese opera, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, one of the eight officially approved plays during the Cultural Revolution.

Exhibitions:
Burning Against the Dying of the Light
Solo Exhibition, Khoj International Artist’ Association Studios, New Delhi
10-31 December, 2015