Organizer: Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University
Type/Location: In Person / Ithaca, NY
Description:
In this talk, Conan Cheong investigates the desire of eminent Lao Buddhist monks to photograph and be photographed by examining the monk portraits kept in the Buddhist Archive of Luang Prabang, Laos. The Archive, housed in a Buddhist monastery, preserves over 35,000 photographs taken and collected by monks from 1890. It was founded in 2005 by Sathu Nyai Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thela, head of the Sangha in Luang Prabang (1953-2007), and a German photographer, Hans Georg Berger.
Conan addresses monks’ photographic practices in relation to other objects collected in Buddhist temple contexts which may be described as “sacred” (Lao: sing saksit) — bone relics, Buddha images, ritual offerings, and particularly the life-sized monk portrait statues modeled naturalistically in wax, resin, or bronze.
Monks are indispensable in Buddhist ritual as the “highest field of merit (anuttaraṁ puññakkhettaṁ)”, where ritual giving (dāna) to them produces the highest level of soteriological benefit for the devotee. Drawing from his doctoral field research in Laos, Conan opens up a discussion on how the photographs of Luang Prabang monks might be seen as expressions of this meritorious giving, corresponding with Buddhological research into how the Buddha, as the quintessential monastic, is made a living presence in material things.
About the speaker:
Conan Cheong is a PhD candidate in Art History and Archaeology at SOAS University of London. His research focuses on the relationship between model, original, and replica in the making and use of Buddhist images (inclusive but not limited to images of the Buddha and Buddhist monks) in Theravada Southeast Asia, centering on the specific case of the 35,000 photographs taken and collected by Buddhist monks held in the Buddhist Archive of Laos in Luang Prabang. He is also curatorial advisor for the upcoming Museum of Buddhist Art in Vat Saen, Luang Prabang, a community museum which was the vision of the late abbot Sathu Nyai Phra Khamchan Viracitta Mahathela (1920-2007).
As Curator for Buddhist and Hindu Southeast Asia at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore from 2016-2023, he worked to develop collaborative relationships between the museum and source or use communities through projects in the museum’s Faith and Belief permanent galleries and in special exhibitions like Body and Spirit: The Human Body in Thought and Practice (2022-23). As a member of Circumambulating Objects: on Paradigms of Restitution of Southeast Asian Art (CO-OP), he hopes to work with the team to collectively articulate strategies of collaborative collecting and art appraisal which may present more sustainable and equitable alternatives to the dominant market-oriented system of antiquities collecting at the root of contemporary questions of restitution and repatriation.
Registration link:
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