Tenzin Mingyur Paldron; animation by Tenzin Lhamo; menu design by Tenzin Tsepel; some men go to Mars, others pay attention to the Earth; 2023; video; 3 min.; courtesy of the artist

What a story from the past can teach us about the presentWhat a story from the past can teach us about the present

The first time I heard this story, I was in my late teens. I didn’t really share it with anyone else. Years passed, and I had almost forgotten about it when I was taking care of some children and needed to come up with a way to distract them. I asked them if they wanted to hear a rare story and they clamored yes.  

After sharing it, I remember the first child, who might’ve been about ten or eleven, immediately expressed his distrust that the story was really true, and he declared my grandfather was probably playing a trick. 

I acknowledged this might be possible, even though I didn’t believe it myself. Then his younger brother interrupted. He asked me, “What do you mean he was cooking on a fire? Do you mean a stove?” I smiled and suggested to the first brother that there might be a different interpretation with which he could negotiate some kind of accord. His younger brother was not aware of a way to even cook food without the innovation of something like a stove.  

Perhaps this story is impossible, at this time and in these places in which it might be very difficult for some people to listen to a fire. But in places where people live in different configurations and with different everyday relationships, this story might be possible. Just like I said before he could cut in, “Certain things are only possible now that in the past few may have thought possible.

Tenzin Mingyur Paldron (he/they) is an artist, storyteller, and community educator. He has a PhD in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley and wrote the dissertation “Tibet, China, and the United States: Self-immolation and the Limits of Understanding.” Paldron is developing multimedia projects such as Tibet Learning Series, Transgender Learning Series, and Ethical Mindfulness. They are also writing a research memoir entitled Transgender Road Diaries: A Tibetan Adventure. He shares these projects through public speaking engagements as well as on his YouTube channel, @DocTenzin. 

Published October 25, 2024
Contemporary Art Forms

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