The Arc'teryx Fireworks Controversy in Tibet Reveals Our Cultural Blind Spots

Outdoor outfitter Arc’teryx and Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang ignited a controversy when they unleashed their pyrotechnic spectacle called The Rising Dragon across the slopes of an 18,000-foot (5,500-meter) mountain in the Tibetan Himalayas.

Video footage from the September 19 event, which has since been taken down, capture an impressive firework display erupting across a mountain in a design evoking the serpentine form of a dragon. The installation was designed by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, whose work often involves combustible material like gunpowder and fireworks, and funded by Arc’teryx as part of a promotional campaign.

Outrage has largely centered on the environmental impact of the fireworks display. And many online users have pointed out the irony of Arc’teryx betraying its environmental ethos by “nuking” a mountain either in the name of publicity or in the name of art.

The Himalayas are known as the Water Tower of Asia, helping provide water for billions of Asians living in lower elevations. And if the Tibetan landscape is integral to the environmental wellbeing of those who live downstream of the Himalayas, the same is true for the cultural and spiritual wellbeing of Tibetans.

While the tenor of the outrage has had an environmental tone, the cultural dimension of the outrage has been largely missing from the conversation. And its absence in public discourse illustrates our collective misunderstanding of the cultural and sacred significance of mountains.

Sonam Tsering of the Tibetan Youth Congress explained in a response to the controversy that Tibetan culture holds mountains and hills as sacrosanct dwelling places of protective deities. As Tsering explained from Dharmshala, “For Tibetans, we believe the mountains and hills are sacred sites where the gods and deities live to protect the environment and people.”

Arc’teryx and Cai Guo-Qiang have since apologized for the stunt. Clothing brand Arc’teryx said in a social media post:

The recent fireworks display on the Tibetan Plateau was out of line with Arc’teryx’s values. We’ve heard your concerns, and we share them. This event was in direct opposition to our commitment to outdoor spaces, who we are, and who we want to be for our people and our community. We are deeply disappointed that this happened, and apologize, full stop. We’re addressing this directly with the local artist involved, our team in China, and will change the way we work to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Our expectation is that everything we do reflects our environmental ethos, and we have no tolerance for actions that do not align. We have already begun efforts to mitigate the environmental and social impacts of this event. We are grateful to our community for holding us accountable.

Arc’teryx’s statement seems to push Cai Guo-Qiang (the unnamed “local artist”) and the nebulous “team in China” under the bus. But we also must remember here that the apparel company is owned by Chinese conglomerate Anta Sports. In other words, the stunt is not the failure of some foreign apparel company, as Chinese media has characterized the controversy. It is a domestic Chinese failure. At least equally so.

Apparently, stunt organizers had acquired all necessary permits. As baffling as it is to consider how the Arc’teryx could have possibly greenlit the stunt, larger questions remain. Did anyone consult Tibetans? Did they have conversations about cultural and environmental impact? Did they run this by their PR team? Probably not.

The commodification or exploitation of mountains is not new. Yet our outrage at the stunt, or what’s missing from it, suggests an interesting point: shaped by Enlightenment rationalism and neoliberalism, the modern mind struggles to even consider that setting off an industrial-scale pyrotechnic spectacle on a mountain might inflame, outrage, and ignite religious or cultural sensitivities.

I doubt any artist or company would have approved the explosive spectacle on Mount Sinai or Jabal al-Noor, yet China and the west have a history of disregarding the cultures in and around the Himalayas.