April 2024
To celebrate Trungpa Rinpoche’s Parinirvana this year, the Shambhala Archives, in collaboration with Nyima Wimberly, launched an audio-visual installation at the Halifax Shambhala Centre entitled Presence/Absence. The installation was based on archival footage of Trungpa Rinpoche’s cremation in 1987 at Karme Choling in Vermont. The footage had been preserved in the Shambhala Archives’ climate controlled vault, but had never been digitized.
Our volunteer and member of the Archives Advisory Group, Rosie Pittas, digitized several hours of the cremation. Next, Nyima Wimberly, documentary filmmaker and Archives volunteer, edited the footage and directed the installation project. He produced a stunning experience.
Using three different projectors and three different walls as canvas, Nyima choreographed a dreamlike, non-linear, non-narrative meditation on devotion, community, impermanence, and memory. The installation received glowing responses from our viewers and we are excited to be able to offer this installation again and again to the community.