After finding a space in the municipality of Emmen in 2017, Tashi Norbu was able to fulfill a lifelong dream and open the first museum of contemporary Tibetan art in the world.

The collection of the Museum of Contemporary Tibetan Art consists mostly out of the former personal collection of Tashi Norbu. Norbu as an artist has a big oeuvre and is heir of his family collection of Buddhist artefacts. He also acquired a lot of historical Tibetan objects by gifts and purchases. When the museum was founded he gifted a great selection of his own paintings and sculptures to the permanent collection of the museum.

Besides his own artworks, Tashi Norbu donated a large part of his collection of Tibetan Buddhist objects that he inherited from his family.
The majority of these artefacts came from the monastery of Tashi’s grandfather which was called Monastery Sekhar Lhakhang situated in South Central Tibet, near the border between Tibet and Bhutan. Because of this provenance the creators of the objects are often unknown or anonymous as historically objects would be unsigned by their creator.

When the museum was founded by Tashi Norbu, its mission was supported by fellow Tibetan artists who donated one of their artworks. Therefore almost all of the objects of the core collection are so far donated by their makers.