While flipping old journals, I found a slogan by Tibetans in exile for a protest. I must have noted it down after being in one protest.
It struck my heart quietly, remembering memories of sharing sadness and being together with Tibetan friends during my long stay in Dharamsala in 2012.
མ་ཆགས་མ་ཆགས།
སེམས་ཤུགས་མ་ཆགས།
Ma chak ma chak
Sem chuk
Namyang
Ma chak
Don’t give up
Courage
Never
Give up
Since towards the end of the last year, I have been painting these blue figures. A phrase 'together, we feel together' was on my mind during painting with blue.
I was thinking of countless humans who stood up for their freedom to be beaten up, arrested and murdered in many places in 2019 up till now.
Countless humans who are in prison and tortured.
Countless humans, whose basic rights to live with their cultural and social identities are denied and captured in detention.
Countless women who were and are victims of sex slavery during wars and conflicts, whose dignity, hearts and bodies were broken into pieces.
Countless suffering.
Often the sense of overwhelmingness and helplessness dominate.
What we can do with our small hands seem to be so limited.
The only thing I can do is to draw these. To feel them.
Together - ness - to feel pain, to share, to heal, to grow, without any border between you and me.
A wounded tender heart is the strongest, the most courageous and the most compassionate that would never give up to heal and reach out to other hearts. Hundreds, thousands of tender hearts are even stronger. There must be a way that we can change how the world is.
Instead of shouting the slogan, we recite one another like a song of clear water and soft breeze.
不要放棄
勇氣
永不放棄
포기하지 마세요
용기
절다 포기하지 마세요.
諦めないで
勇気をもって
決して諦めないで
note: This caption, too, is still in progress. I am catching words.
