Such are the times, some of my strongest friendships are with people whom I have yet to meet in person. Conversations with Rinchen Dolma, founder of Made in Exile and Tenzin Chimme, the Administrative Director of the same program are expansive, generative and beyond inspiring.

To highlight the work and friendship with Made in Exile, we collaborated with Ngawang Datok , a photographer based in Toronto, Canada to shoot these photos in film. We will eventually meet Rinchen and Chimme in person one day, and it’ll be nothing short of a celebration. But in the meantime, we hope you enjoy this conversation. Follow @madeinexile to learn more about their program, future workshops and residencies.

 1. Tell me a little about yourselves.

Rinchen Dolma: I was raised on bollywood dreams of love and Tibetan resilience to rise above….  JK 

I was born in KTM, came to Canada in 1996, moved around quite a bit until I finally landed in Tkaronto. I studied International Development Studies, Refugee and Forced Migration and Community Arts in Practice. I founded MIE in 2015 and am currently the artistic director. I’ve been working in the arts sector as a community arts practitioner and arts administrator for the last 5 years. I am interested in movement work and am an emerging director, playwright, performer and dramaturg. I love writing poetry, movement and secretly making ceramic pieces. I’d like to improve my wheel work but hand building pieces make me feel the most adventurous. My practice is embodied and intersectional and that’s the way I try to meaningfully engage with the world. 

Tenzin Chimme: I was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal and I moved to Canada in 2016. Outside of MIE, I am an undergrad student at University of Toronto. For the past 2 years, I have been working with a professor mentor from my school on a research project that explores the migrants’ resilience through their community organizing in the GTA. I am excited to share the work with everyone when that’s complete.

2. How has your family, community and upbringing influenced the work you do for MIE? 

RD: Having had family and community in KTM readily available to me, then being removed from that space- I started to develop a deep desire for community throughout my adolescence. I was fortunate to have my immediate family members who kept me rooted in the culture and later on in my life. When I returned to Toronto I very intentionally threw myself back into community work. Stories of home, our people and family heavily influenced me alongside being welcomed into other BIPOC and queer communities. It inspired me to create spaces that were artful for our own community. I am a culmination of my community and the BIPOC communities who were kind enough to share space with me in diaspora. 

3. How has this COVID pandemic impacted MIE? What were some of the challenges? Any shifts in perspective or how are you re-imagining running your programs moving forward?

RD: It was drastic. We went from being an embodied and visceral space to having to be distanced and online. We continually had to adapt the program's nature and structure according to the ever-changing COVID restrictions throughout the year, which was extremely challenging. As staff, taking care of our own mental health while finding ways to support our youth participants as they experienced the mental, physical and financial toll of COVID-19 was indeed a great struggle. 

However, because of the pandemic, our online work allowed us to be active with our online engagement on our social media platforms, specifically on instagram where most of our young audience are. We more than doubled our followers by hosting IG LIVE art night sessions, posting more regularly throughout the year to keep our audience engaged and informed about the upcoming programs we were offering by doing IG LIVE Info and Q&A sessions with our partners. This allowed for our reach to expand our community in the diaspora especially in the US, India and Nepal. There was also a large growth in online engagement as we received increased private DMs and comments from people who expressed their interest in our work, and were seeking resources or guidance about how to create community arts programming. If there is one good thing that has come out of our COVID experience with regards to our work, it would be the possibilities to connect with our community members transnationally. 

4. How would you describe your relationship to Studio Tenjung?

RD: Our relationship with Studio Tenjung emerged organically. I expressed my interest in exploring textile work to a cousin sister who then connected me to you which then led to a shy DM to request some guidance into an artform we were wanting to invest in. Dozens of facetime chats later, we developed a mentor-mentee relationship with ST as we conceived our weaving program with the support from you and saw the program through from the beginning to the end. It was the artist mentor dynamic we were deeply in need of and in search of and it was so magical how it all fell into place. Seeing the stunning work produced by Studio Tenjung and hearing about your approach to your practice incited excitement, pride and inspiration for ourselves as community arts practitioners. We saw the intersection of community, labour and art in the work done by ST and that is embodied in the approach ST has taken in the natural dye process, to paying homage to the women who largely sat at the looms to weave the carpets to the care that is shown in uncovering histories of Tibet through our weaving lineage. I am in love with the Momo cushions because they are an intimate piece of artwork that offers humble braids, intentional materials and playful textures that remind us to covet all who came before us. 

TC: My favorite piece would be the Momo cushions. They are incredibly beautiful and pleasing to eyes but what makes them even more beautiful is how their conceptualization is interwoven with storytelling. Storytelling is such a powerful tool that can give meaning to lifeless objects and that’s exactly what the cushions do to me. I look at them and I see the stories of the momolas in our lives, who are gentle and fierce, strong and artful, on whose love and strength our community survives; and of those who may no longer be with us yet continue to live through their stories of resilience. Those cushions, such a beautiful tribute to our momolas!