Within the frame of the seven-part HTA lecture series "(Un)settled. Performance, Protection, and Politics of Insecurity" the filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam will talk about self-immolation as a form of protest.
Since February 2009, an estimated 155 Tibetans have self-immolated in Tibet. They are mostly monks and nuns, but also students, teachers and farmers who set themselves on fire in public places. In front of the eyes of passers-by who witness the act of protest. Since all other possibilities of peaceful protest are brutally suppressed, the act of self-immolation remains as the only way to draw attention to the increasingly intolerable situation in Tibet. The lecture is based on the multimedia installation "Burning Against the Dying of the Light" (2015), which was an attempt by Sarin and Sonam to respond to the self-immolation movement.