Sonam Dolma
Oneness
Performance & Installation
Cistern Yard and Albert Simons Center for the Arts
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC
April 12, 2026
During her time as Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts’ artist-in-residence in Spring 2026, leading Swiss-Tibetan artist Sonam Dolma led numerous workshops leading up to her Oneness performance and installation. Participants from various communities formed their own tsa tsas, small votive objects composed of clay, using exact replicas of the brass tsa tsa mold that Dolma’s family carried with them when they left Tibet in 1959. Into these tsa tsas, they inserted various items such as barley grains blessed by the Dalai Lama, written prayers and wishes, and small personal tokens. On April 12, workshop participants gathered at the College of Charleston’s Cistern Yard. Led by Dolma, they carried the tsa tsas in a meditative procession through the campus and into the Simons Center for the Arts where they installed Oneness.
Dolma explains: “with Oneness, I wish to create a collective call for peace together with others. We are only visitors on this earth. We are not here forever. In the end, we all become ash. What remains is our interconnectedness.”
To read the artist’s statement, see the link below.
Select Images
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, "Tsa tsas," (detail from performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston), 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Cistern Yard, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Simons Center for the Arts, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Simons Center for the Arts, College of Charleston, 2026.
Sonam Dolma, Performance at the Simons Center for the Arts, College of Charleston, 2026.
