"Transient Mountains emerged from a fleeting encounter between memory, material, and landscape. During a winter residency at LAMO [an art organisation based in Leh] in 2022, I witnessed my first snowfall after six years away from Ladakh. In the silence of the landscape, I instinctively placed an egg tray onto the fresh snow. The tray briefly molded the snow into forms resembling a fragile mountain landscape. Before the snow dissolved, I photographed the imprint, preserving a moment that would otherwise have disappeared. Four years later, this image returns as a flag. Printed on cloth and raised into the wind, my intimate gesture becomes an invitation to reflect on impermanence, belonging, and ecological fragility. The melted snow becomes a metaphor for disappearing landscapes, the consequences of climate change, and the transient nature of memory. The flag carries both absence and presence: it preserves a trace of touch, a vanished form, and the memory of a homeland through its movement.“ (Skarma Sonam Tashi)
Transient Mountains is the 41st contribution to raising flags, the exhibition series by museum in progress. Produced in collaboration with the sā Biennale Ladakh 2026, Skarma Sonam Tashi's flag will be presented in August 2026 both on Vienna's Stubenbrücke and, simultaneously, in Lamayuru, India, at an altitude of 3,500 metres. While the snow-covered mountains depicted on the flag may evoke a place of longing in the height of the Viennese summer, within the mountainous landscape of Ladakh they become emblematic expressions of collective identity and cultural belonging.
Skarma Sonam Tashi was born in 1997 in Sapi, a remote Himalayan village in Ladakh whose landscape, vernacular architecture, and cultural traditions have profoundly shaped his artistic practice. His work frequently draws on memories of this place, employing recycled materials to reflect on ecology, sustainability, and the relationship between people and Ladakh's fragile environment.
raising flags