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London’s leafy monument to the Tibetan people

The Japan Times, by Julia Cassim

February 9, 2000

At first glance, the choice for the site of Samten Kyil, the Tibetan Garden of Contemplation (generally known as the Tibetan Peace Garden), just south of the River Thames in London’s Southwark, does not seem particularly apt. The ground on which the garden was laid out is steeped in history of madness and suffering rather than the qualities of inner and outer peace that the garden seeks to foster. Yet on reflection, it is this-in the presence of the Imperial War Museum, the garden’s current neighbour with its own set of unhappy memories- that makes the choice so meaningful. If any site is in need of contemplation and healing, it is this one.

The garden sits in the north-western corner of what was once the Bethlem Royal Hospital, formally London’s main hospital for the insane. Bedlam, as it was once known, dates back to the 13th century and was originally housed where Liverpool Street Station now stands, north of the river. In 1815, a splendid new hospital designed by James Lewis in neo-classical style was completed on the present site in Southwark, near Waterloo Station.

Until 1930, when it was moved to a new building in the leafy suburbs of Kent, just outside London, Bedlam was more feared than the workhouse - and with good reason. Attitudes towards the insane, criminal or otherwise were far less enlightened than they are now. Once incarcerated in Bedlam, there was no hope of release for the hospital’s inmates; until 1770 at least, they were chained or manacled to the walls, serving as a major public attraction for paying visitors. By the 1930’s more humane treatment methods had long since been introduced, but the institution still bore the stamp of misery that attaches to any place of no return.

When the building in Southwark was vacated, the east and west wings were demolished to create a public park leaving only its central portion. This gained a new tenant in 1936 in the form of the Imperial War Museum, which had been established in 1920 to commemorate the dead of World War I. Here the concept of peace is taught by means of the artifacts and memories of war. With the creation of the Peace Garden, dedicated as it is to the Tibetan Buddhist concepts of non-violent resolution of conflict and the importance of contemplation, an alternative has finally been offered.

Four years in the making

The garden was consecrated on May 13, 1999 by the Dalai Lama, the date chosen not for its auspiciousness, but because that was one of the few free days available in his busy calendar. Over 3000 people attended, including 15 monks who had traveled from India. They were doubtless bemused by the hordes of press and curb-crawling fans anxious to catch a glimpse of His Holiness and any other celebrity who swam into view. But many who came had been involved in some way in the garden’s development and had no interest in the media circus.

Four years in the making, the Peace Garden project had won support from a kaleidoscope of international social celebrities; Harrison and Melissa Ford, Paul McCartney and Vanessa Redgrave to name but a few-along with a brace of titled heads and an archbishop. More important than the celebrities however, was the level of goodwill generated among lesser known individuals and groups with interests as diverse as mountaineering, conservation, botany and political activism. All had given their time, expertise and money to make the garden a reality (although raising the £400,000 necessary has been a major headache). It was only with the financial support of the project’s patron, Trudy Styler and her husband Sting, and their energetic twisting of arms, that the garden was able to be completed in time for the millennium for which it was first conceived.

Styler and Sting’s interest has been underpinned by enthusiastic support on a local level, from the mayor of Southwark all the way down to local residents. It was local council leader Jeremy Fraser who not only approved but also suggested the site when the project was first mooted by the London based Tibet Foundation. Presentations and lectures were given to local schoolchildren and other community groups who took part in the many religious and cultural events organised during the course of the project. They started in July 1996 with the Peace Festival of Tibet when Gyurme monks performed Buddhist rituals on the site. This was followed by, among other things, the blessing of the garden by Lama Thupten Nyima in August 1998 and the creation of a sand mandala by Tibetan monks. Almost 9 months after opening, the garden bears no trace of the graffiti or vandalism that was predicted for such a tough neighbourhood.

 Tibetan Southwark

The project was managed and realised by the New Zealand born sculptor, Hamish Horsley, a long-time supporter of the Tibet Foundation in London, which commissioned the garden but gave him free creative rein. Before arriving in London to study stone carving at the City and Guilds School and later sculpture at the Royal College of Art under Philip King, Horsley had spent two years in an Indian monastery. He has since been back to India many times to take documentary photographs and has exhibited these and other work worldwide on behalf the Tibet Foundation.

The Peace Garden project has been the central focus of Horsley’s work for almost four years and in its final 18 months he was unable to work on any other commissions. For a sculptor of his stature that represents a truly selfless commitment.

Before he accepted the Peace Garden commission, Horsley had already gained a reputation for other public art projects in places of deep religious or historical significance. One such was “The Way” commissioned in 1994 by British Rail and Durham City Council to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of Durham Cathedral. His cruciform arrangement in Portland stone, combining freestanding organic forms and geometric shapes laid in relief, stands on a hill overlooking the city in dialogue with the cathedral in the distance.

A more recent work, completed immediately before the Peace Garden was begun in 1997, was the Doncaster Gateway: a 5.5 m contemporary reinterpretation and symbolic representation of the entrance to this northern town that was once a walled and gated Roman city.

Given this background, Horsley was unusually well-qualified to handle a project that required a sensitive understanding of the cultural and spiritual issues involved. What was required was a finished work that would be a seamless visual synthesis of two worlds and yet would not look incongruous in a South London park. “I wanted to get a mix”, he says, “to take something that was almost quintessentially Tibetan and then make it a Western contemporary sculpture”

Horsley’s initial concept was of a single monumental stone sculpture set in a simple arena, but the choice of site in a high profile conservation area led him to rethink it. The original idea grew, and as it did, it began to take on a far weightier religious significance - ultimately requiring visits by Horsley to India to discuss every aspect of the project with monks from the Gyurme Tantric College and Namgyal Monastery.

“There were some long discussions about key features,” he says “particularly the gateway and what element it should represent. I wanted it to be earth, but this was changed to air. It was a big learning curve for me, but essential for the linking of the two cultures. The design of the mandala also took a huge amount of time and discussion before it was finally drawn up by the monks, so there was collaboration even at this level. We have also had to fit in the necessary Tibetan rituals for the religious integrity of the project at various stages. It’s been overwhelming at times, but it has been a hugely exciting and dynamic process”

An era of peace and harmony

Other environmental issues were at stake too, since the site chosen was near a major road junction. Fifty saplings were planted on the northern perimeter of the garden for reasons that Horsley explained. “Some people wondered why the garden was placed where it was, close to the road and its noise, which is why a lot of planting has gone on to help reduce this impact. But this is a key site - seen by huge number of people every day and combined with it being located to the front and side of the War Museum made it perfect for public art project of this nature, it was a fantastic site”.

Horsley conceives of the garden as a single sculptural entity, although it is composed of different interlocking elements, some original, others based on traditional Buddhist thought and artefacts (but all with their own significance). The garden is orientated along the north-south East-West axis of the Wheel of Dharma that forms the basis for the whole design. One approaches from the west to face east, passing the white Portland stone Language Pillar before turning into the garden stop

The design of the pillar is based on the Shol Pillar which stood at the base of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, but but since been moved by the Chinese after their so-called re-appropriation of Tibet in 1950. [Updated info on this and of Lhasa’s historic Treaty Pillar can be found here]

The pillar in London is set upon three steps representing peace, understanding and love and is topped by a pineapple shaped stone configuration representing the “precious jewels.” But instead of a peace treaty it contains a message from the Dalai Lama, written specifically for this project.  Designed by letter designer Sally Bowers and exquisitely carved in Tibetan, Chinese, Hindi and English by Mark Frith, assisted by John das Gupta. The message is a simple one:

“We human beings are passing through a crucial period in our development. Conflicts and mistrust have played the last century, which has brought immeasurable human suffering and environmental destruction. It is in the interests of all of us on this planet that we make a joint effort to turn the next century into an era of peace and harmony. May this garden become a monument to the courage of the Tibetan people and their commitment to peace. May it remain as a symbol to remind us that human survival depends on living in harmony and always choosing the path of nonviolence in resolving our differences”

The Pillar opens into an arena where a series of concentric circles radiate out from the central feature of the garden: a copy of the Kalachakra Mandala or “Circle Offering of the Universe.” This bears deep significance for the Tibetan people, symbolising as it does the principle of the “Great Teaching” and is believed to bestow well-being on all those who view it. The mandala has been variously painted, rendered in sand and constructed in three dimensions, but this is the first time it has been cast in bronze and set on a circular slab of dark Kilkenny marble

Beneath the mandala is buried the Sacho Bumpa, an urn containing sacred objects brought from India and consecrated in January 1999 before the mandala was lifted into place.

“Originally it was going to be carved in stone,” Horsley says, “but once we got the design from the (Namgyal) monastery in India, the drawings were so detailed that we realised it would be impossible to carve it in stone, so we had to make a complete leap of faith and make the decision to carve and model it in plaster and to then have it caste in bronze. It was a difficult decision but it actually worked better as it allowed for intricate detail while making it more durable.”

So the mandala was transcribed onto a large block of plaster (sized to fit in the stone) as an exact replica of the version provided the monks. A highly skilled team led by master carver Tim Metcalf, assisted by Bulgarian artist Iassen Dimitrov and Tibetan carver Awang Dorjee worked in Horsley’s south London studio for months on this part of the project, before it was cast in an Essex foundry. Dorjee, a recent exile from Tibet, found solace in the religious aspect of the work for the trials of his new life: the damp English climate, long hours of standing around and yet more cultural adjustment coming hard on the heels of the emotional turmoil on being a refugee.

Also cast in bronze and set into the paving stones around the mandala are the Eight Auspicious Symbols, representing the Vase of Treasure, the Banner of Victory, the Eternal Knot, the Parasol, the Wheel, the Golden Fishes, the Lotus and the Conch Shell.

Behind these, in a circle, are eight meditation seats in York stone representing the Noble Eightfold Path of right speech, thought, view, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. Although the look pale grey in the sun on a rainy day the stone takes on subtle shadings of pink and violet, lending colour to the austere central arena.

Overlooking the whole are Horsley’s three large abstract high reliefs, carved in Portland stone and depicting the elements of fire to the north, water to the south and earth to the east, with the gateway into the garden representing air. The enclosure itself embodies the fifth element of space (or ether).

A white rose

In his other work, Horsley, drawing on his New Zealand childhood, finds inspiration mainly in natural forms. “In this instance,” he says, “I focused intensely on the visual memories I have of travelling in Tibet, through that extraordinary, powerful landscape. I have attempted to capture something of that energy.” His motifs are therefore based on a perception of the movement of natural forces. Earth is conceived as sharp, rigid, unified zigzag; water is a swirling, curvilinear mass; and fire rises in disciplined plumes spreading as it goes. Unlike much public sculpture, this work cries out to be touched.

The garden has been enclosed by steel and timber pergola in four sections, planted with climbing Himalayan, Tibetan and Chinese flora, all the better to concentrate the space within, once they grow. On the rainy autumn day of my visit, a white rose planted by a long-term support of the project was in bloom. The donor, despite being wheelchair-bound and in the last stages of terminal illness, had been brought to the completed garden by her family just a week before she died.

Julia Cassim is an art critic for The Japan Times and a regular contributor to the Focus page

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