01a Burmese Art Seminar - Lugano 20 VII 2012

TREASURES FROM THE GOLDEN LAND Seminar on Burmese Art and Culture Lugano, Heleneum, 20.VII.
2012
1. The seminar On Friday, the 20th of July 2012, from 9.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m., the Museo delle Culture of Lugano (MCL) will hold a seminar on Burmese art and culture in its Conference Room at the Heleneum (via Cortivo 24/26). The seminar has a twofold aim. Firstly, to analyze and deepen the meanings, values and functions of some works of art that are particularly representative of the Burmese art in both its sacred and profane dimensions; secondly, to offer a reflection on the place that is nowadays occupied by the Burmese art, within the larger context of collecting Oriental art and of modern museography. The seminar will be open to the public, held in English and opened by Giovanna Masoni Brenni, head of the Department of Cultural Activities of the City of Lugano. Six scholars of Burmese studies are participating with their contributions: Bndicte Brac de la Perrire (Center of Southeast Asia Studies, Paris), Alexandra de Mersan (Center of Southeast Asia Studies, Paris), Alexandra Green (British Museum, London), Catherine Raymond (Center for Burma Studies, Northern Illinois University), Guillaume Rozenberg (Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarits, Socits, Territoires, LISSAT, Toulouse). The lectures will be followed by a discussion open to the public moderated by Adriana Mazza, head of the MCL Higher Education and Institutional Relations Dept. The seminar is directed by Cline Coderey, who is responsible for the South East Asian research projects of the MCL, and is also a collaborator at the Institut de Recherches Asiatiques (IrAsia) in Marseille and at the Center of Southeast Asia Studies in Paris. The seminar is organized by the MCL and is inscribed within the broader context of its higher education and research activities as a scientific preparation for the temporary exhibition Dana. Larte birmana del dono [ Dana. The Art of Gift] organized by the MCL from the 10th of October 2013 to the 9th of March 2014 (Heleneum). The papers of the seminars contributions will be published in the exhibition catalogue. The project is supported by the Ada Ceschin Pilone Foundation (Zurich), the main partner for the research projects lead by the MCL on Oriental art and culture.
MCL, Heleneum, Via Cortivo 24/28, 6976 Lugano, Svizzera; Tel. +41.(0)58.866.6960; Fax +41.(0)58.866.6969; skypename mcl.info; www.mcl.lugano.ch; e-mail info.mcl@lugano.ch.
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TREASURES FROM THE GOLDEN LAND Seminar on Burmese Art and Culture Lugano, Heleneum, 20.VII. 2012
2. Burmese art Since they remained for a long time in the shadow of their neighbours the Great Oriental Civilizations of India, China and Thailand - Burma and its art have rarely been studied and are still quite unknown. The long-lasting closure of the country further obstructed any sort of fieldwork for outsiders. The rare specialists on Burmese art some of whom will participate in the seminar and the few publications existing on this topic are the reflection of these historical circumstances. Burmese works of art are also hardly found outside their country of origin, hence being a prerogative for a few museums and collectors. Amongst the European museums which actually have some of these pieces, some in particular should be mentioned here; the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Muse Guimet and the Muse du quai Branly in Paris, the Museum fr Asiatische Kunst in Berlin, the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, the Vlkerkunde Museum in Munich, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin and the Museo dArte Siamese in Cagliari. In Switzerland, both the Museum der Kulturen in Basel and the Muse dEthnographie in Geneva own a small collection of Burmese works of art. Important Museums in the United States are The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Centre for Burma Studies in Dekalb, Illinois, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the Denison Museum in Granville, Ohio. Burmese art is strongly permeated by the external influences of neighbouring countries, as well as by Western values and tastes that reached the country first of all through British colonization and, recently, through tourism and globalization. Nonetheless, Burmese artisans and artists always succeed in adapting foreign canons and techniques to local culture, bringing into existence an original artistic creation all the more rich and heterogeneous as it is the reflection of the ethnic mosaic that characterizes the country. The outcome consists of an art that is strongly embedded in the values and the imaginary of Theravda Buddhism, which is the religious soul of the country. This is an art that conciliates the past of the great royal dynasties with the present of everyday life of the common people. In the Burmese culture, everyday objects, devotional objects and decorative objects are melted together without any distinction between decorative arts, beaux-arts and applied arts. Traditionally, the aim of any kind of art was to provide the religious circle, the royal one and the lay people with works of art of a particular beauty.
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The artistic effort has always focused on decoration. Sculptures, inlays, fabrics made of bamboo strips, lacquers and gold leaves embellish Buddha images, local spirits images, betel boxes, offering pots and jars with enlivened lotus flowers, zodiacal signs, mythological animals and court scenes. Thus, even the most common object is extrapolated from its pragmatic function and is combined with a cosmic and sacred dimension. The study of these works of art is based on the parameters of the anthropology of art, and allows to potentially disclose various frameworks for the understanding of these objects, which may range from everyday life to the cosmological system, and the values and the practices of those who have created and used them. 3. Contributors by alphabetical order and topics Bndicte Brac de la Perrire Images and spirit possession in the cult of the Thirty-Seven Lords Abstract - The Thirty-Seven Lords are the guardian spirits of domains located in Central Burma that have been collected in a pantheon by various kings. Today, they are celebrated through a sophisticated ritual system spreading throughout all of Burma, in which spirit possession is central. Spiritual mediums are the religious specialists in charge of the cult of the Thirty-Seven Lords, through which spirits manifest themselves to their devotees and believers. However, the possibility for the manifestations themselves depends on the spirits material representations, images or statues, existing in a supposedly original form in their main sanctuaries, and in a duplicated form in the personal shrines of spiritual mediums. This paper examines the role of materiality of the spirits in the rituality of spiritual possession through the contrasted statutes of these images. Professional status and biography - Anthropologist, current director of the Center of Southeast Asia Studies (CASE) in Paris. Bndicte Brac de la Perrire holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris, 1984). Since 1991 she has been a researcher with the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS, France). Since 1984 she has conducted inquiries amongst ritual specialists of the Burmese spirit possession cults, particularly of the cult of the Thirty-Seven Lords. She is the author of Les rituels de possession en Birmanie: du culte dEtat aux crmonies prives. Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, ADPF, Paris 1989. Together with Hiroko Kawanami, she has recently edited
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the special issue of Asian Ethnology on Power, Authority and Contested Hegemony in Burmese-Myanmar Religion (Asian Ethnology, 68-2, 2009). She also defended a habilitation dissertation presenting a synthesis of her works on the Burmese spirit possession cult (Sur les rives de lIrrawaddy. Un essai dinterprtation de la possession desprit dans la religion birmane. EHESS, Paris 2009). She is now researching the current changes in the Burmese religious field. Cline Coderey Meanings and values of dana (donation) in the Burmese art and culture Abstract - Cline Coderey is going to introduce the seminar by exposing the outstanding characters of Burmese art and culture and by linking them firstly to the close examinations that the following contributors will propose. She will also link them to the theme of donation as the central thread of the temporary exhibition that the MCL is going to hold from September 2013 to March 2014. Professional status and biography - Anthropologist, scientific collaborator at the MCL and associated member of the IrAsia, Marseille, and of the Center of Southeast Asia Studies (CASE) in Paris. Cline Coderey holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Provence (Marseille, 2011), a Diploma of Burmese language at the National Institute of Oriental Language and Civilisation (Paris, 2009) and a M.A. (four years diploma) in Social Psychology at the University of Lausanne (2004). Since 2004 she has conducted researches on the therapeutic conceptions and practices in Arakan, with a particular focus on the encounter between local cosmology and Western medicine (Western part of Burma). She has published on these topics: Maladie et pratiques thrapeutiques en Arakan (Ouest de la Birmanie) (Asanie, 2009, 24) and Du karma aux plantes : Les thrapeutes arakanais et leurs pratiques htrognes de soin (Moussons, 2010, 15). Since the end of her Ph.D. in 2011, she has been leading researches on traditional and neo-traditional medicine and the role of women in the field of health (as victims as well as healers). She has recently been accepted as associated member of the IrAsia (Marseille) and the CASE (Paris). In 2011, she has also started a collaboration with the MCL; thanks to a grant from the Ada Ceschin Pilone Foundation, she is studying and cataloguing a private collection of Burmese art and will curate the temporary exhibition opening in Lugano in October 2013.
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Alexandra de Mersan The Art of Betel: Concerning Certain Burmese Social and Ritual Uses Abstract - Far from being specific to Burma, the use and significance of betel have long been recognised. These range from stone inscriptions dating from the 11th century, to virtually every social class throughout the population. The presentation will review what chewing betel quid means in Burmese society, notably that betel is a manifestation of the relationships it creates, nourishes and maintains. Ranging from the most basic situations of daily life up to the ceremonies of royalty, the presentation will be specifically narrowed to this latter use which is materially expressed through a collection of betel boxes. Professional status and biography - Anthropologist, Researcher at the Center of Southeast Asia Studies (CASE) in Paris. Alexandra de Mersan holds a PhD. in Social Anthropology from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris, 2005). She is the author of several articles on local social and religious practices within Buddhist societies. Her research in Burma has covered topics such as material religion, ritual, territory, migration and socio-religious dynamics, ethnicity and nation-building. She is an associate member of the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE-CNRS, Paris), and is currently working as a researcher as part of a FrancoGerman team on a research program entitled Local Traditions and World Religions: The Appropriation of Religion in Southeast Asia and Beyond. She is also a Lecturer in Anthropology at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO, Paris). Alexandra Green Burmese Buddha Images in Context Abstract - This contribution addresses the characteristics of Burmese Buddha images, drawing on some private collections as well as on the collections of the British Museum. Burmese Buddha images have been little studied. Many are undated, their origins are unknown, and the emergence of stylistic and iconographic themes is largely undescribed. The variety of Buddha types, coupled with the lack of information concerning them, makes it very difficult to produce a basis of classification. Issues of style and time are discussed with reference to contacts with India, Himalayan and Chinese regions, and Thailand, as well as other forms of art such as wall paintings. The forms of the images may also reveal
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how these were moved around the country for trade purposes. Buddhas images were differently used according to different contexts, and such elements might be useful clues when defining their production. Professional status and biography - Curator of the South-Asian Department at the British Museum in London. Ms Green has an MA and PhD in Art and Archaeology of Southeast Asia from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her main areas of study are Burma and Thailand. Prior to her appointment as Henry Ginsburg Curator for Southeast Asia, she was Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Curator of Asian Art and Director of the Denison Museum in Ohio (USA), and Curator of the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath. At the Denison Museum she published Eclectic Collecting: Art from Burma in the Denison Museum (NUS Press, 2008). Dr. Green was also Research Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, where she organized the conference Rethinking Visual Narratives from Asia: Intercultural and Comparative Perspectives and edited the volume of essays, which is due from Hong Kong University Press in Autumn 2012. She has also edited, with Richard Blurton (Curator for South Asia, Department of Asia, the British Museum), a volume entitled Burma: Art and Archaeology (The British Museum Press, 2002). Catherine Raymond Collecting Burmese Art in the 21st Century Abstract - Through the colonial and the earlier post-colonial periods, private collections of Burmese art were relatively nave and idiosyncratic: the assemblages taken home by Burma-based foreigners originally civil servants, diplomats, missionaries who had been given or otherwise offered to purchase various attractive artefacts. Later on, new and antique pieces came into the possession of visiting scholars and experts with a more complete idea about their meaning, provenance, and quality. Those collections that were inherited by the following generations of the owners, or that have since been bequeathed to museums and universities, tended to reflect both a personal and intimate knowledge of the country, and the specific historical period during which they were originally collected. However, after 1962 access to the country was limited for outsiders to a single in-transit day, later expanded to a week or two, and now generally extended to a month. In this
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light, rather different modes of acquiring and collecting Burmese artworks quickly emerged. Relatively fine pieces were being widelyand usually unofficiallyexported and commercially marketed for tourists and connoisseurs. This happened originally through dealers in Thailand, but the practice was soon extended to Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and in due course throughout the Western art world. With the rise of globalization and of the Internet, Burmese art became broadly known and accessible to an increasingly larger circle of Asian art enthusiasts and investors. Based on our study of some private collectionsand in comparison with other well-known collections in Europe and in the USA (some of them going back to over a century) this paper will explore the modalities of collecting Burmese art as they have been evolving throughout the 21st century. It also seeks to identify several of the different actors that we have interviewed thus far, and some of the aesthetic, mercantile, and even psychological elements that are involved in the process. Professional status and biography - Art specialist, Director of the Center for Burma Studies and Curator of the Burma Art Collection, Northern Illinois University, USA. Catherine Raymond is the Director of the Center for Burma Studies and Associate Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University (NIU), specializing in Southeastern Asian art. She holds degrees from La Sorbonne, Paris (Ph. D. and M.A. in Indian art and archaeology), an MA in Burmese Language and Culture from the Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, Paris, and has also been studying for a few years at Yangon University in Burma/Myanmar. She is the curator of the NIU Burma Art Collection and the General editor for the peer-reviewed Journal of Burma Studies, the only scientific Burmese Studies journal published in the world which is now co-published together with the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on the Buddhist iconography of Theravada Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia and more particularly on Burma/ Myanmar and Laos. As the team-leader of Lao Iconography Project since 2000, and in cooperation with the Historical Museum of Amsterdam, she has been involved with various museums and curatorial practices in Vientiane (Laos) for which she was awarded grants from the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (U.S. State Department) and from the French Ministries of Education and of Foreign Affairs (2000, 2002, 2004). She has been producing several articles and conference presentations on Buddhist iconography and on cultural conservation in Laos and Burma, and in 2011 co-authored the exhibition
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catalogue Laque et Or de Birmanie, published by the Musee des Arts Asiatiques (Paris and Nice). At NIU she teaches introductory courses on Southeastern Asian art, collection management for the Museum Studies Certificate, and also upper level/graduate courses and seminars on Indian and Southeastern Asian art. Guillaume Rozenberg What is a Statue? Cultic Art in a Burmese Exorcistic Community Abstract - The contribution provides an illustration of Burmese cultic art: an expression that designates here the operating combination of cultic materials and cultic techniques. It focuses on the role of statues in a well-known contemporary exorcistic community. This communitys cultic activities revolve around invisible beings called weikza. The weikza, who are purveyors of exorcistic power, are said by exorcists to be present through their statues. The paper investigates in which ways and to what extent statues may make this presence of invisible beings possible and effective. Professional status and biography - Anthropologist, Researcher at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS, France), member of the LISST - Centre of Social Anthropology (Toulouse). Guillaume Rozenberg holds a PhD. in Anthropology from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris, 2001). He has been a researcher with the National Centre of Scientific Research since 2004 and is a member of the LISSTCentre of Social Anthropology in Toulouse, France. His research focuses on figures of Buddhist sainthood and its related cults in contemporary Burma. He is the author of Renunciation and Power. The Quest for Sainthood in Contemporary Burma (Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, Monograph 59, 2010) and Les Immortels. Visages de lincroyable en Birmanie bouddhiste (Sully Press, 2010).
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4.
09:00 09:30 10:00 10:30 11.00 11.15 11.45 12.15 14.00 14.30 14.00 16.00
Seminar program
Welcome Official greetings and opening of seminar Cline Coderey - Meanings and values of donation in the Burmese Buddhist art and culture Catherine Raymond - Collecting Burmese Art in the 21st Century Coffee break Alexandra Green - Burmese Buddha Images in Context Bndicte Brac de la Perrire - Images and spirit possession in the cult of the Thirty-Seven Lords Light lunch offered to all participants in the Park of Heleneum Alexandra de Mersan - The Art of Betel: Concerning Certain Burmese Social and Ritual Uses Guillaume Rozenberg - What is a Statue? Cultic Art in a Burmese Exorcistic Community General discussion open to the public End of seminar
5. The seminars of MCL Amongst the institutional aims of the Museum of Cultures is also the realisation of recurrent academic activities (teachings, courses and laboratories) and seminars (basic training and continuing education). These focus on the theme of cultural anthropology, anthropology of art, museography and more generally on preservation, safeguarding, management and valorisation of cultural heritage. Such activities are an inherent part of the Museums System of activities and are carried out as follows: - for the verification and the confrontation of the outcomes of the studies made by the Museums teamwork and by its scientific collaborators; - for the preventive debate on themes related to the Museums exhibitions;
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- to support the growth of professional skills in the action area of the Museum, both by providing the heritage of researches and experiences of the Museum and by allowing an active audience to benefit from the international network of collaborations and scientific exchanges of the Museum; - to offer to various experts and scholars a place for interaction and debate, both at regional and international levels, on some themes of particular interest and relevance as related to the collections or research activities of the Museum. The Museum also coordinates conferences and meetings open to a wider public on topics related to the current researches carried out by MCL. As a complement to the exhibitions of the Museum (both temporary and permanent) guided tours are also organised coupled with a in-depth examination on a specific theme. The MCL generally plans and carries out its activities of higher education in collaboration with academic institutions and other partners (museums, scientific institutions,) both at a regional and international levels 6. The next seminar The next seminar of MCL will take place on November 15th, 2012 (at the University of Lugano) with the title of The inner journey in the cultures and religions of Asia This international conference will close the celebration marking the centenary of the birth of the Italian ethnologist, writer and photographer Fosco Maraini (1912-2004).
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8.
General information and contact Friday the 20th of July 2012, 9.30-16.00 Lugano, Museo delle Culture, Heleneum - Via Cortivo 26 T. +41(0)58.866.6960 - www.mcl.lugano.ch Participation is free and open to any interested person. Former inscription is kindly requested. Adriana Mazza, Head of Higher Education Dept. of MCL adriana.mazza@lugano.ch; T. +41(0)58.866.7213; Mob. +41(0)79.760.3827 Carolina Riva, General Secretary of MCL carolina.riva@lugano.ch ; T. +41(0)58.866.6962
Date/time Venue Participation
Inscriptions and general questions
Francesco Paolo Campione, Director of MCL paolo.campione@lugano.ch For specific questions about T. +41(0)58.866.6963; Mob. +41(0)79.599.4830 seminars Cline Coderey, Resp. for South East Asia research projects of MCL contents celine.coderey@lugano.ch T. +41(0)58.866.6960 - Mob. +41(0)79.793.5687 Adriana Mazza, Head of Higher Education Dept. of MCL For interviews adriana.mazza@lugano.ch T. +41(0)58.866.7213; Mob. +41(0)79.760.3827 with seminar contributors Carolina Riva, General Secretary of MCL carolina.riva@lugano.ch ; T. +41(0)58.866.6962 Photos to download (press only) http://www.lugano.ch/museoculture/welcome.cfm?pagina=stampa
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TREASURES FROM THE GOLDEN LAND Seminar on Burmese Art and Culture Lugano, Heleneum, 20.VII.

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