October 16, 2021 at 4:00 PM
BMCM+AC (120 College Street) + Zoom
Proof of vaccination required for entry
This talk by Pamela D. Winfield examines the tensions and tactics involved in exhibiting Buddhist visual culture in modern museum spaces. It first critically examines the ideological divide between sacred and secular that reduced powerful Buddhist icons into aesthetic objects within 19th century Euro-American collections of Asian “art.” However, it then also examines how Japanese Buddhist temples in particular persevered through periods of persecution, preservation, and paradox, as they ultimately installed temple “treasure halls” (hōmotsukan) that replicated the very kinds of western-style museums that had pillaged their temple treasures a century and a half previously. If the 19th century transferred the temple out to the museum, then the 20th century transferred the museum back into the temple grounds. The result is that both American and Japanese museums need to be understood as hybrid spaces, where the supposed boundaries between sacred and secular are porous and continually negotiated by diverse audiences.
Free + Open to all
Pamela D. Winfield – A Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University, Winfield’s teaching and research focus on the intersection between religion and visual / material culture, especially as they relate to issues of healing, religious experience, and power relations in Japan. She is the author of Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kūkai and Dōgen on the Art of Enlightenment.