Commentary
I have not been to Tibet: I can’t say if this is a Tibeten tent as the signs nearby described it. It was however one of the few buildings in women’s town that showed a distinct cultural origin. What do our houses and cities say of our cultures besides displaying the power of authoritarian institutions in their monumentalism? Are the concrete lions on the gatepost, the wind chime at the window, the rosemary in the kitchen garden, the jade bush by the front door, the only reminders of a distant homeland? Can we read assimilation and genocide on the facades of our homes? If what I suspect is true, that what is built embodies gender politics, how does it also embody cultural politics?