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Friday, January 09, 20158THE MONGOL MESSENGER

Arts Council of Mongolia, Delta Foundation Center, IV floor, Tourists Street-38, Chingeltei District Tel/Fax: 976-11-319015 E-mail: education@artscouncil.mn Web: www.artscouncil.mn

ARTS COUNCIL OF MONGOLIA

The Mongol Messenger is operated by the government news agency MONTSAME and is printed by the MONTSAME.Home Page: www.mongolmessenger.mn; E-mail: mongolmessenger@yahoo.com (ISSN 1684-1883)

ARTS & CULTURE

On December 19, the Arts Council ofMongolia (ACM) organized an Artsand Human Rights presentation and

talk at ACMs Red Ger Gallery with supportof the Embassy of Canada. The talk aimedto increase public awareness of humanrights and social inequality through the arts

and bring together different opinion makers,artists and human rights specialists to discussselected topics with around thirty people. Forthe event, ACM invited visual arts, media,photo artists, human right specialists and thegeneral public to share their opinions andexperience.

In the rst part of the talk, several shortpresentations were presented by specialists.The Arts and Human Rights presentationwas made by Naranjargal Kh., Chair ofGlobe International NGO; Every step isa hurdle short lm by Globe InternationalNGO; Dream short lm by Khoroldorj Ch.,lm director of the Best short lm awardfrom the 2010 48 HOURS lm festival;and Social injustice art exhibition byLkhagvadorj E. a young emerging artist.

After the presentations, invitees helda discussion on human rights and socialinequality with 7 panelists, comprised ofTs.Ariunaa, Executive Director of ACM,lm directors D.Turmunkh , J.Sengedorj,Ch.Khoroldorj, Kh.Naranjargal, GlobeInternational NGO, B.Oyunchimeg,

producer and journalist of MNB andE.lkhagvadorj, young artist. During the talk,both panelists and participants enhancedtheir understanding of the importance ofarts to strongly express social issues andchallenges.

Arts and Human rights programsuccessfully organized

Arts and Human right talk at Red Ger art gallery

The ACMs RedGer Art Gallerywas established in2003 to promoteMongolian ne

arts domesticallyand internationally,

and to support the long-term sustainability of the

culture sector by providing a marketplatform for artists. Over its eleven yearsof operation, the Red Ger Art Gallery

has showcased a number of exhibitionsby famous and emerging young artistsand served as an invaluable resourcefor capacity building, arts communitytrainings, and public lectures. The RedGer Art Gallery has given opportunitiesfor Mongolias emerging talented artiststo exhibit high quality, innovative andwell-presented art exhibitions. Also, theRed Ger Art Gallery leases its venue fordifferent events, trainings, exhibitions andorganizes mediating services for expatsand interested individuals.

In 2015 Red Ger art gallery willcontinue its normal operation and willinitiate new creative trainings for artistsand individuals such as Arts English forartists and Fine Art lessons for expatsand interested individuals conducted byprofessional artists. This training will starton January 15.

Currently, the Red Ger Art Galleryis presenting a new art collection bytalented emerging artists. The collectiondisplays over 30 artworks by B.Nomin,O.Urjinkhand, O.Zolbootuguldur,Ch.Bolor, E.Amarzaya, and T.Nurmaajavthat are for sale.

The Red Ger art gallery is located onthe rst oor of the central KHAN Bankbuilding on Seoul Street. The Red Ger artgallery is open Monday through Saturdayfrom 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and entrance isfree.

For more information, please call88708969, 319017 or contact us onlineat redger@artscouncil.mn or www.facebook.com/redger.artgallery.75

The Red Ger Art Gallerywelcomes visitors

In January 2015 the website www.mongoliantemples.org went live. MongoliasBuddhist heritage is revealed in a treasuretrove of data presented in this website of theDocumentation of Mongolian Monasteries

project.Today, as Mongolians are actively

seeking to retrieve the past, striving tomake contact with their historic culturalidentity, the Documentation of MongolianMonasteries website present to the publica complex database of over 1,000 templesexisting in Mongolia in the early part of thetwentieth century along with a record of

temples active in 2007.The project is a collaboration between

the Arts Council of Mongolia (ACM) andMongolian and International researchers.The Documentation of MongolianMonasteries website presents a globallyaccessible wealth of data on over 1,000historic Buddhist temple sites, many ofwhich today are no more than vague outlineson the steppe, as well as sharing the storiesof hundreds of Mongolias old people whoknew the temples when they were young. Itdocuments a rich cultural past and, promotesMongolian cultural heritage internationallywhile encouraging young Mongolians toembrace their heritage.

In addition this rich and uniquecollection of data will provide Mongolscholars in and outside Mongolia with astarting point or adjunct to their study ofMongolias Buddhist past. It can also serveas the basis for further study on the revivalof monasteries in Mongolia after 1990.

BackgroundThe projects genesis was in 2001

when Pete Morrow, then CEO of KhanBank of Mongolia, and Dr. StephenBatalden, professor of history at ArizonaState University discussed how quicklyknowledge of the templesnearly alldestroyed in purges of the 1930swas beinglost as people old enough to remember thosetimes were nearing the ends of their lives.The two began sketching a plan to save theinformation.

Batalden secured a grant and providedMorrow an intern, Collin Raymond, forthe 20012002 school year. This smallteam began scoping what the projectwould require, securing cooperation fromBuddhists, local archivists, governmentofcials and others with an interest in thetopic. Early-stage funding for the projectcame from Khan Bank and Arizona StateUniversity.

Guido Verboom, then the projectmanager for ARC (Alliance of Religionand Conservation) engaged with the projectand introduced Sue Byrne, a professionalsurvey researcher then working in Buddhist

restoration in Mongolia with a Londonbased charity, to the project team She hadlong planned to do such a project having

promised the the Head Abbot of Mongolian

Buddhists center-GandantegchenlingMonastery Choijamts Demberel in 1998that it would be done. She became highlyengaged and later, as volunteer, became the

projects director.The team agreed that a Pilot project

would be done in parallel to developingproposals and funding for a countrywidesurvey. Verboom then connected the projectto the Arts Council of Mongolia shortlyafter it was formed in 2002. He then securedsupport from a Dutch sponsor.

The Pilot study was conducted in Tovin 2004, followed in 2005-2006 by a full

survey of the Ikh Khuree temples done bytwo Hungarian scholars, Krisztina Telekiand Zsuzsa Majer. They allowed the projectto use this invaluable and unique data as wellas contributing to the countrywide survey.

In 2007, ACM in collaboration withGanden Monastery, the Presidents ofceand the Cultural Heritage Centre conductedthe countrywide survey. Six survey teamsconsisting of academics, monks fromGanden Monastery and the two Hungarianscholars conducted the survey in 21 aimagsin the summer of 2007.

Lhagvademchig Jadamba, a Buddhistscholar, who studied at CTHS (Centre forTibetan Higher Studies) in Sarnath, India,oversaw the Buddhist content of the surveyleading the academic surveyors and a teamof Buddhist students in processing andanalysing the data. Two of the surveyors,Munkbat and Khulan Chimedtseye, nowAssistant Professor at the AgriculturalUniversity, did sterling additional work onthe Precis Histories of the sites and the OralHistories.

In the nal phases, Byrne became thevoluntary director of the project, spendingseveral years and making many trips toMongolia to oversee and often directlymanage the work. Under her guidance,

the collected data on the Old templeswere translated and processed and wereassembled on the website to be accessible tointernational and local academics and to thegeneral public.

It is only with Byrnes vision, leadership,tireless work and enormous investmentof time and treasure that this project has

produced this newly expanded and feature-rich website.

The website includes data of over 1,000pre-1939 sites and around 300 temples thathad become active since 1990 (the majorityof these on the site of an old temple).

Photographs and GPS co-ordinates weretaken for the vast majority of the sites.Over 350 Oral Histories and nearly 500site plans can be downloaded from thesite. Mongolian archive photographs have

been supplemented with further archivephotographs from Russian and Europeansources such that there are pre-1939 imagesfor around 60 monasteries on the site

The project was funded by KhanBank, Petrovis LLC, Western Union, USAmbassadors Fund for Cultural Heritage,Arts Council of Mongolia-US, the Shelleyand Donald Rubin foundation USA,anonymous private donors, a successfulonline crowd-funding drive and many othersupporters.

The project is dedicated to all theold people in Mongolia who shared theirmemories with us without whom we wouldnever have been able to do what we did.

See: Facebook: Mongolias BuddhistMonasteries

www.mongoliantemples.orgFor more information contact:

Bayanmunkh Dorjpalam, Arts Councilof Mongolia cultural heritage programdirector at heritage@artscouncil.mn

Sue Byrne, Project Manager atmongolianbuddhisttemples@gmail.com

New website uncovers Mongolias Buddhist past as memories and traces fade