Buddhist Art Initiative: Connectivity as a Driver for Change
The creation of Buddhist sculptures, paintings, and ritual implements, and the use of a wide range of symbolic representations in Buddhist visual culture, served originally to support religious practice and lead believers to the Buddha’s teachings. Whether as a devotional object, a donation for merit making, a visualization tool used in ritual, or a vehicle for the path of meditation, Buddhist art fulfills its spiritual purpose all the more when it evokes transcendence of all form, the illusory realm of phenomena, and when it assists believers in attaining deeper levels of realization.
Essentially, the core messages of Buddhism pertain to the cultivation of insight into emptiness and the cultivation of altruistic aspiration in the attainment of nirvana, the state of liberation. The paradoxical relationship between Buddhism and its visual manifestation is expressed in an inscription on a Tang-dynasty (618–907) Chinese statue of Buddha in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin:
The highest truth is without image. But if there were no images there would be no possibility for the truth to manifest itself. The highest principle is without words. But if there were no words how could the principle be known? (Seckel, 2004, p. 54, trans. Andreas Leisinger)
In Buddhism, this insight trains the mind to realize the non-duality of appearance and emptiness. The wisdom is discoursed in the Diamond Sutra, of which the earliest extant printed copy in the Chinese language, dated to 868 CE, is now preserved in the British Library. The use of word and image in the Buddhist visual realm can thus be interpreted as ‘an ephemeral manifestation of reality and truth whose totality and absoluteness cannot be grasped’ (Seckel, 2004, pp. 56–57).
Understanding this spiritual meaning of Buddhist art in the religious context offers a frame of reference for the following examination of efforts by secular museums to exhibit objects of religious significance in order to enhance audience engagement and public learning.
Exhibiting Buddhist art in museums or other secular spaces creates new contexts and conditions that often give rise to new meanings. The objects may convey multiple meanings to diverse audiences, depending on different ways of seeing and perceiving. Scholars and curators have long recognized the complex issues surrounding museum representations of religious materials (see: Sullivan, 2015; Ang, 2005). Besides, there are conscientious efforts to provide foundational work for imparting knowledge and making Buddhist art accessible to a general audience, such as recent books on Buddhist art collections in public institutions (see: Behrendt, 2019; Igunma and May, 2019; Diamond, 2017).
This essay is a reflection on the experience gained through collaboration with several museums on exhibition projects supported by the Buddhist Art Initiative of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. It highlights the common trends of development, shared concerns, and adopted solutions that have been evident across the projects. With the changing cultural landscapes, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and global diversity movements, it is also timely to assess if certain directions of change will continue to exert influence and enable museums and cultural institutions to become stronger and more resilient.
The initiative aims to activate Buddhist art resources in public collections to inspire learning. As there is no intention on the part of the Foundation to propagate religion, its partnership with museums and other cultural institutions— which consciously present neutral standpoints (see Clarke, 2015, p. 69)—offers the conditions to support innovative interpretive strategies for audience engagement.
Following the establishment of the Buddhist art galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum (from 2009 to 2013, and later relocated and reopened in 2017), the Foundation convened a two-day workshop in Washington DC, in October 2013, bringing together scholars, curators, professionals in various disciplines, and Buddhist practitioners to explore the issues, challenges, and opportunities regarding the presentation of Buddhist art in museums. Several key points emerging from the discussions anticipated important aspects for exploration: audience accessibility, collaboration, scholarship, incorporating religious ideas (Buddhist doctrine and ritual practice) into art interpretation, and the use of new media in presentation.
It is worth mentioning that the Foundation’s Buddhist Art Initiative was launched about the same time when museums were striving to implement new interpretive strategies to improve visitor experiences. The initiative provides an opportunity for grantee-institutions to develop internal strategies to meet changing needs and, more importantly, to share lessons learned across projects. It creates an informal platform for institutional exchange and collaboration.
The initiative gathered momentum with a series of grants supporting, initially, exhibition organization and collaborative planning and, eventually, education and public programmes. Some have already opened to the public while others are still in planning or delayed due to the pandemic. Institutional partnerships span across different geographic regions in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe.
The exhibition portfolio is characterized by diversity and plurality. Included are special topics, such as: Dunhuang’s cave temples (Getty Center, 2016); the inner journeys of Tantric practitioners and the relationship of art, science, and spirituality (Victoria and Albert Museum, curatorial research, 2018–19); Buddhist tales told in Thai palm-leaf manuscripts (Chester Beatty Library, 2019); Buddhism, contemporary art, and social practice (Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, planned for 2023); and early Buddhist art in India (Metropolitan Museum of Art, planned for 2023). In addition, there are survey exhibitions offering an overview of Buddhist art across time, space, and cultures, such as projects developed by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution (2017–22), Minneapolis Institute of Art (curatorial research, 2017–19), Museum Rietberg (2017–20), and National Gallery Prague (forthcoming in 2021).
Other learning programmes are also supported by the Foundation: convening (Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2018); art education (Museum Rietberg, 2017–20); symposium (British Library, 2019), heritage transmission (Core of Culture, 2020–21); digital archiving (Huntington Archive, University of Chicago, 2020–21); and diversity outreach (Rubin Museum of Art, 2021).
Experiences of Buddhism and Buddhist art are immensely rich and multifaceted. In creating the narratives for an exhibition, a common challenge is how to present interwoven stories of Buddhism, of art, and of people and how to mediate experience and perception to inspire constructivist learning.
Within the story of Buddhism, there are the commonly told tales of the Buddha’s life, the doctrines, and the transmission of various systems of thought and ritual practices underlining the creation of the artifacts on display. The story of art touches on the iconography, historical contexts, function and meaning, conservation, and provenance of the Buddhist materials, as well as, in the case of contemporary art, the artist’s creative concept and process. The story of people relates to the Buddhist community, living tradition, ritual, and cultural practice; understanding these elements provides the basis for human connection and cultural respect.
Many of the exhibition projects under consideration are collaborative and transdisciplinary in nature, taking in multiple perspectives in curatorial interpretation. In many cases, the initial research and planning stage involves organizing workshops and symposia, in which museum professionals collaborate with Buddhologists and other specialists to jointly define narratives and interpretive strategies. Participating scholars help to incorporate recent scholarship and guard against stereotypes. Convergence of expertise has enabled knowledge transfer across institutional boundaries into the public domain.
Another common practice across the projects is to engage Buddhist practitioners and Asian heritage communities in the curatorial process. In this context, projects are approached through an additional lens of respecting cultural heritage and diversity in a transcultural society (see Hagdorn, 2019, pp. 133–34). This is easier said than done, as admitted by the grantee-institutions. Yet it is worth further exploring how to incorporate more explicitly alternative voices into an exhibition.
Take, for example, the Museum Rietberg exhibition that was organized to accompany the education programme, ‘Understanding Buddhism Through Art’. Included in the show was an interactive station titled ‘Ten Concepts, Twelve Voices’ (Hagdorn, 2019, p. 139). Presenting their non-sectarian, personal connections with Buddhism, individuals of different genders and cultural identities offered their views and interpretations of such concepts as suffering, karma, mindfulness, and compassion. Careful deliberation was undertaken by the organizers to ensure a diverse representation of personal accounts.
Significantly, adding others’ voices has the effect of transforming the exhibition space into a more inclusive and democratic learning environment. When mediated thoughtfully and meaningfully, a multiplicity of voices does not necessarily replace or mitigate a well-balanced interpretive scheme designed to reveal meaning and inspire learning. As a significant step to embrace diversity and inclusion, this is important for museums to consider.
To attract a younger audience, the Rietberg approach was unconventional in extending collaborative participation to school children and teachers. Students—who study a ‘Religions, Cultures, Ethics’ syllabus at all levels of compulsory schooling in the canton of Zurich—were invited to share the exhibition space with the museum curators to present their own research projects, on such topics as Buddhism in Switzerland (Hagdorn, 2019, p. 138). The educational workshops encouraged students to learn about Buddhism and Buddhist art through not only exhibits but also games, creative activities, and dialogues. Children were guided to share experiences of empathy, gratitude, and loving-kindness whereas teenagers reasoned on issues in ethics and interfaith dialogue. Using Buddhist art as the starting point for connecting on a more personal and imaginative level, the programme assumed additional meaning in fostering critical thinking, empathy, and cultural tolerance. This was particularly relevant within the social context of migration affecting demography in Switzerland.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art combined exhibition planning with its ongoing collaborative work for fostering empathy through art-based engagement. The museum’s Empathy Lab has brought together diverse specialists and thinkers from various disciplines to develop prototypes and interpretive strategies for cultivating empathy. This is another example of how the Buddhist Art Initiative can intersect with other schemes of organizational experimentation to make Buddhism relevant to societal needs.
The use of immersive multimedia technology has been rather successful in engaging audiences of all age groups. Many exhibition visitors had memorable experiences of such installations, including: the full-scale replicas of Dunhuang cave temples in the Getty Center exhibition; the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room and the immersive film on Sri Lanka’s Great Stupa (Ruwanwelisaya), presented by the Sackler Gallery); virtual tours to Buddhist monuments with synchronized indication of geographical locations on a world map projected onto the floor, in the Museum Rietberg exhibition. Presenting the themes of sacred monument, pilgrimage, shrine worship, and ritual practice, these immersive experiences have transportive and emotive power and are particularly effective in connecting with visitors’ personal life experiences. Inside the Tibetan Shine Room, for example, ambient light and sounds of chanting prayers activate multisensory perceptions and psychological responses. More than providing visual and audio contexts, they transform the gallery into a contemplative space, which in turn reaffirms the religious significance of the Buddhist materials on display. For non-believers, the emotive experience can inspire curiosity for learning. For spiritual practitioners, the exhibition space relates to memories and experiences of religious practice. This challenges the idea that museums necessarily elide sacred qualities from religious objects. The Rubin Museum of Art, for example, strives for its Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room to be an oasis for peaceful contemplation, with regular onsite or virtual public programming for advancing awareness.
In sum, the interpretive strategies are intended to enhance public engagement with Buddhist art and ignite learning through a diversity of experiences: aesthetic, cognitive, reflective, multisensory, memory invoking, interactive, personal, and social. The intrinsic and spiritual value of Buddhist art is always available for discovery, inviting viewers to explore ideas, to make connections, and to assign meanings. Furthermore, it offers a vehicle for deep reflection, for developing innermost awareness, and for meditating on the essential truths of Buddhism.
Regarding the initiative’s impact, what is most noteworthy is the realization of the potential of connectivity for driving change: connecting different types of expertise and perspectives for the art of connecting with people. All of these efforts are based on the principles of equality and respect. Through experimentation with a new model of plurality and emerging technology, the projects offer possibilities in embracing values while engaging audiences with Buddhism and art.
As suggested by an audience-research document titled, ‘Culture and Community in a Time of Crisis’, the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a great need to provide means for people seeking connection with others through art and culture, in the form of digital technologies (LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett Audience Research, 2020, pp. 14–16). It seems that all the aforementioned trends of development will continue to be valid for cultural institutions.
Beyond the exhibition experience offering an encounter with Buddhist art, more profound impacts on individual transformation, in terms of deeper knowledge and spiritual awakening, are subject to more complex interplays of contingencies. In this regard, the collective work of the Foundation and its partnering institutions is to offer the conditions for transformative engagements with Buddhism and art. As the Buddhist concept of planting seeds and roots suggests, acts with virtuous intentions will bear good fruit.
Anita Chung served as Chief Operating Officer of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation from 2015 to 2021. She is currently Head of Heritage at Tai Kwun, Centre for Heritage and Arts, in Hong Kong.
This article first featured in our July/ August 2021 print issue, pp 73-80. To read more, purchase the full issue here.
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