Faraway Home:  Tibetans in Minnesota

July 7, 2023 – Spring 2024

This exhibit highlights Tibetan history, Tibetan resettlement in Minnesota and the refugee experience, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan art, and the Tibetan community in Minnesota today.  Photographs by both local Tibetan photographer Tenzin Phuntsok Waleag and nationally acclaimed photographer Keri Pickett are featured in the exhibit. 

Faraway Home was developed in partnership with local members of the Tibetan community and the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota (TAFM), led by President Ngawang Dolker.

Thupten Dadak, founder of the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota (TAFM) was appointed coordinator of the Tibetan Resettlement Project in Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1990 by the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In this role, Thupten, TAFM Board Members, and many recruited Minnesotan volunteers helped establish the 160 original Tibetan immigrants in the Twin Cities, resulting in the growth of the second largest Tibetan community in the U.S. 

Nancy Dadak, co-curator with Alyssa Thiede of Faraway Home: Tibetans in Minnesota, has worked as a photographer, art director and content developer, and has lived as a member of the Tibetan community since 1995. Nancy has served as Administrator for Gyuto Wheel of Dharma Monastery for more than twenty years. She is also co-owner with Thupten Dadak of Heart of Tibet, a Tibetan cultural store in Minneapolis.

Tenzin Nordon, a Tibetan-American leader with a passion and mission to bring sustainable change to communities. She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1998 and was brought up in the Minnesotan Tibetan community. Tenzin is a graduate of Carleton College and has an M.A. from St. Catherine University.

Photo courtesy of Keri Pickett.