COSEY : A l’heure où les dieux dorment encore – Pages 102-103
  See it in the Museum
Emporium
Orientation 3
Wall object 2

ABE 048

 Code: ABE 048

  Country: Switzerland

  Style:

  Date: 2021

  Dimensions in cm WxHxD: Unknown

  Materials: Reproduction couleur

Tibetan "poya" by Cosey (2021), souvenir of the exhibition Cosey - Un Tibet Dessiné, Tibet Museum, Nov. 2023-Feb. 2024

This Tibetan « poya » naturally found its place in the Tibet Museum and establishes a connection between Tibet and Gruyères. 

The poya, the move to supreme pastures, is the Swiss name for transhumance in Swiss Alpes. This tradition from Fribourg is inscribed at the Unesco as part of the Intangible World Heritage. After spending the winter in the plains, cow herds are spend the summer in the alpine pastures. The movement of the herds (poya = moving up / désalpes = moving down) are the occasion for long processions and celebrations in which the cows are decorated with gigantic bells and flowers in bunches. Poya is also the name of an often naive painting and paper-cutting traditions representing these transhumances.

Beyond the allusion, this must be seen as one of the common practices between cowherds from Gruyères and Tibet.