Milan, Italy, December 8 – The visitors to the world famous international fair of Milan known as “L’Artigiono in Fiera” are getting a unique experience at this year’s event. Dubbed as one of the largest international fairs in the world, the annual event in the city of Milan this year is showcasing Tibetan and Buddhist culture for the first time ever in its long history.
Traditional Tibetan costumes, Thangka paintings, sand mandala, Tibetan cuisine, Tibetan stone carving art, traditional music, exhibits of Buddhist artifacts are some of the attractions for the visitors thronging the fair that began on December 5 and will go on until December 13, 2009.
Dorjee Sangpo, a trained Tibetan Thangka painter from Paris who also runs a Tibetan shop called “Tibet Art”, has collaborated with a French designer Vitale Stefano to design the Tibetan section of the fair. Vitale, a Buddhist himself, said he was honored to be given the opportunity to work with an experienced Tibetan artist in giving the required look to the Tibetan section of the fair. “We started working on it together a year ago, and it was challenging to make the huge traditional Tibetan canopy attired with Tibetan designs, and also to build a giant Buddhist stupa.”
Dorjee Sangpo says he is privileged to be showcasing the rich Tibetan culture. “Not withstanding our current political status, I feel proud to be a Tibetan because Tibet is one of the world’s few countries that had history with the land they lived in. We had not migrated from somewhere else. We have several thousand years of history. We have our own language, script, costume, etc. And we have used our language to preserve the Buddhist tradition that is dying elsewhere. So I am proud to be showing here what we Tibetans have preserved.”
The Tibetan monks from India creating a sand mandala here says they feel great to be participating at the fair since they get to promote the universal values of compassion and kindness through their interactions with the visitors who watch them build the mandala.
Exhibitors from over a hundred countries have converged in Milan to showcase their products and services at the fair which has several sections covering almost every industry. Estimates from the past indicate that the total number of visitors to the fair that runs over a week go well over 3 million.
