Photos from “Icons of Impermanence: Contemporary Buddhist Art” Conference

About this Event

Original post for the event HERE

Icons of Impermanence: Contemporary Buddhist Art, the conference organized by UBC’s Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program, was held last July 6 to 8, 2012, at the CK Choi Building and the Museum of Anthropology. This conference was held in conjunction with the Visions of Enlightenment exhibition (also at the Museum of Anthropology)  sponsored by the Canadian Society for Asian Arts.

July 6, 2012

Panel 1: Reframing Art in Contemporary South Asian and Himalayan Context

• Chair: Katherine Hacker (University of British Columbia)
• Catherine Becker (University of Illinois at Chicago) “Bulletproof Stupa: Framing the Buddhist Heritage of Andhra Pradesh”
• Latika Gupta (Jawaharlal Nehru University) “On Sacred Ground: Constructing an Ancient Ritual for ‘Tibetan’ Buddhism in Spiti”
• William Y. Ng (Hong Kong Baptist University) “Representing the Sacred and the Profane: A Preliminary Reflection on the Spatial Design of the Chih Lian Complex”
• Ben Wood (University of Toronto) “Shalu’s Inaugural Statuary According to the Monastery’s Contemporary Promotional Publications”

Original post for the event HERE

Keynote Address: Cynthea Bogel

• Cynthea Bogel (Kyushu University) “New Roads to Nirvana: Visual Buddhism, Modern Eyes”

Original post for the event HERE













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July 7, 2012

Panel 2: Contemporary Artists and their Buddhist Inspirations

• Chair: Gregory Levine (University of California at Berkeley)
• Sabine Grosser (University of Paderborn) “Changing Perspectives: Politics, Identity and Buddhism in Contemporary Sri Lankan Art”
• Anne Vincent-Durand (Institut d’Arts, Lettres et Histoire, U.C.O., Angers, France) “The Emergence of the Visible in the Works of Chen Zhen”

Original post for the event HERE







Panel 3: New Interactions with Japan Buddhist Images and Ideas

• Chair: Cynthea Bogel (Kyushu University)
• Sherry Fowler (University of Kansas) “Pilgrimage to Two Local Temples in Kyushu”
• Patricia J. Graham (University of Kansas) “Buddhist-Inspired Artists from Contemporary Japan: Intersections of Tradition, Imagination, and Social Activism”

Original post for the event HERE





Panel 4: Western Appearances

• Chair: Jessica Main (University of British Columbia)
• Gregory Levine (University of California at Berkeley) “Legend of the Colfax Buddha Heads: Landscape, Race and the Visual Cultures of Buddhist Modernism”
• Laurie Milner (Bishop’s University and Concordia University) “Resounding Stillness: Reflecting on the Bardo of the Present Moment”
• Eva Seegers (Canterbury Christ Church University) “Contemporary Tibetan Stupas in Modern Europe: The Opportunities and Risks of Constructing Buddhist Monuments in a New Cultural Context”
• Marwood Larson-Harris (Roanoke College) “Contemporary Adaptations of the Oxherding Pictures and the Globalization of Buddhist Culture”

Original post for the event HERE