Hercules in White: Classical Reception, Art and Myth

Hercules in White: Classical Reception, Art and Myth

Aimee Hinds
Articles, Peer Reviewed

The polychromy of classical sculpture has been systematically suppressed in Western art since the Renaissance resulting in an artificial whiteness that fits within a tradition of presenting false racial narratives of the Greco-Roman historical past and mythology, one that codes all idealised bodies as white, young, and hetero-normative. Using an intersectional framework to consider the significance of class, gender and race, the author analyses receptions of the Farnese Hercules and explores why (lack of) colour has been weaponised as a way for Western culture to claim an inheritance from the ancient Greco-Roman world, and how this is perpetuated in modern classical reception.

Garlands for Gods in Southeast India

Garlands for Gods in Southeast India

Leah Comeau
Photo Essays, Peer Reviewed

This is a study of flowers and garlands in Tamil South India as they travel through temples and markets and are grown, sold, and bought by a variety of communities. Various threads of sensory engagements, including colors, fragrances, and the clamor of the market and festive temple grounds, all accumulate into a sense of community aesthetics and sensational forms, from which a devotee might draw to participate.

2020 Summer Issue, Part 2, Innovation and Material Religion - Editorial

2020 Summer Issue, Part 2, Innovation and Material Religion - Editorial

Urmila Mohan
Editorials, Issues

Our Summer 2020 issue on the theme of Innovation is the second of a two-part series that explores instances of creativity and change drawn from various parts of the globe – India, Thailand, and the Western world. Our offerings include a photo essay on jugaad practices among costumers in the Indian film industry, a photo essay on sensory and community aesthetics in a South Indian flower market, a photo essay on care practices and questions of change in Thailand, and an article by Aimee Hinds on how color (or its absence) perpetuates false racial narratives in modern classical reception of the Greco-Roman past.

Sri Krishnan Temple: Doing and Making Sense of a Shared Multi-sensorial, Multi-religious Space in Singapore

Sri Krishnan Temple: Doing and Making Sense of a Shared Multi-sensorial, Multi-religious Space in Singapore

James Mah
Articles, Peer Reviewed

Singapore is renowned for being a multi-ethnic, multi-religious haven, home to a plethora of religious communities that live in putative harmony because they tolerate and respect each other’s differences. This paper tries to modulate such a narrative, through an original study of the shared multi-sensorial, multi-religious space at the Sri Krishnan Temple in Singapore. It is argued that sameness, not difference, reigns there and that this is possible because Hinduism, or for that matter, lived religion, is mediated through the senses.

On Innovation

On Innovation

James Bielo
Articles

A think-piece on the value of innovation in the “just do it” age of late capitalism. The author, James Bielo, parses jugaad as frugality, experimentation and creativity, and illustrates his point through a brief description of two historical figures: Brother John’s making of the Ave Maria Grotto in Alabama as well as the carvings of Elijah Pierce, an African-American self-taught artist from Mississippi.

2019-20 Winter Issue, Part 1, Innovation and Material Religion - Editorial

2019-20 Winter Issue, Part 1, Innovation and Material Religion - Editorial

Urmila Mohan
Editorials, Issues

Our Winter 2019-20 Issue, Innovation, Part 1, explores different aspects of innovation with examples drawn from various parts of the world – India, South East Asia (Singapore and Cambodia), and the US. Our offerings include an article on worship in multicultural Singapore, a think-piece on innovation, an essay on how traditional rituals are being adapted for new publics in Cambodia, and a discussion with an Indian anthropologist about craft and heritage.

Anchoring Devotion in a Layered Terrain - Bartolo Longo and the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary in Pompeii

Anchoring Devotion in a Layered Terrain - Bartolo Longo and the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary in Pompeii

Jessica Hughes
Articles

Jessica Hughes introduces her ongoing research project on the Catholic sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary in Pompeii, Italy. Focussing on the writings of the sanctuary’s founder, Blessed Bartolo Longo (1841-1926), she explores how far early devotion at Pompeii was anchored within the local terrain – a complex, enchanted landscape made up of multiple layers, both historical and geomorphological. In doing so, she also thinks about how the many international devotees of this Italian Madonna have developed material techniques for connecting with the deeply sacred landscape of the Pompeian Valley.

The Cultural Hybrid in Colonial Java and Pekalongan Buketan (Bouquet) Batik

The Cultural Hybrid in Colonial Java and Pekalongan Buketan (Bouquet) Batik

Karina Rima Melati
Articles

Karina Rima Melati examines the development of the batik buketan (bouquet) motif and how the creativity and labor of batik workers in Pekalongan of the North Coastal region in Central Java, Indonesia, helped contest, produce and reproduce what has now come to be known as an iconic batik style of that area.  Melati draws from previous studies of batik in different contexts, the marginality of batik labor, the growing trend of batik, batik and the postcolonial theoretical framework, and batik from a global perspective.

On Context

On Context

David Morgan
Articles

David Morgan offers us a thought-piece on the idea of ‘context’, a concept integral to The Jugaad Project. He notes that artifacts do not carry their meanings within themselves, though they may bear the traces of their contexts, of the settings from which time, history, and events have withdrawn them. The task of scholarly study is to re-situate artifacts within the settings that we find underlie their interpretation.

Heavenly Garden: Creating Intimacy, Developing Empathy

Heavenly Garden: Creating Intimacy, Developing Empathy

Ratu Saraswati
Articles, Reviews

The author, a performance artist, describes the impetus behind “Optik-Optik Kecil” (Tiny Optics), a participatory artwork of collecting morning dew. The performance was held in an area of land in Depok, a city close to Jakarta in West Java province. It was set at a specific time—weekend mornings during the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. Participants canvassed the landscape collecting morning dew and, much like the practice of fasting, the performance itself aimed at cultivating people’s empathy. With dew as the materiality of hope and awareness, the artist hoped to make the participants’ realities intersect, even if briefly, within the space of the landscape.

2019 Fall Issue, Landscapes and Material Religion - Editorial

2019 Fall Issue, Landscapes and Material Religion - Editorial

Urmila Mohan
Editorials, Issues

Our Inaugural Issue on the theme of “Landscapes and Material Religion” deals with land and its representation as vital to life and identity. The Fall publications deal with ‘land’ and ‘scapes’ via a performance artwork in interior Java, Indonesia, the creation of a batik style called buketan in coastal Java, and the materializing of sacred landscapes in Pompeii, Italy.

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