This blog records the process of researching and re-appraising Tibet and Himalaya-related museum, library and archive collections and the material world relating to Tibetan and Himalayan culture beyond the confines of the museum. Using the concepts of knowledge production, loss and recovery our posts reveal the ‘behind the scenes’ conversations we have in museum stores,…
What can become of a shell
Observations of prayer wheel wear pads in Lhasa and Kathmandu This article explores an apparently insignificant, mundane object – the wear pad of a Tibetan prayer wheel – to show how it can have interesting and diverse trajectories even after it has become useless as a wear pad. Worn-down wear pads have acquired new values…
After Offering
The third and final post by Dr Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko. In late May 2009 just as the rolling steppe was finally springing green, my husband and I, along with some friends, pile ourselves into old Russian vans and set out from Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar on a pilgrimage to Mother Rock (Eej Khad) in the nearby Töv…
Of Mould and Mildew and the Impermanence of the Sacred
A second guest post by Dr Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko ‘Very dusty, humid, fungi, very dry, so much dust and insects, mice. The smell is very bad‘ describes a chatty head librarian from a major temple in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. He’s recounting the condition of thousands of sūtras, in both Mongolian and Tibetan, returned to the temple after…
Instantiating the Potential Potency of Doubt
Dr Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, The University of Copenhagen is joining us for a series of posts to discuss aspects of her current research. Each summer thousands of Ulaanbaatar’s residents travel across the greening steppe four hours northwest to arrive at Amarbayasgalant Khiid, one of Mongolia’s best preserved temples. Used during the socialist period as a storage…
A Collector in Tibet: A Short Film
This is a short film I worked on with Belle Vue Productions about the process of collecting a contemporary Tibet collection for World Museum in Liverpool. It features Gina Corrigan, a long time travel guide in mainland China and Tibet who has spent a number of decades collecting clothing and textiles in Kham and Amdo….
29 July 1937: Statue of Jetsun Dölma
Statue of Jetsun Dölma Made before 17th century Made in Northern India Now in the collection of the British Museum, 1946,1217.3 With this post I want to highlight how one extremely well networked object reveals a set of relations that connect Tibetan aristocrats to British colonial officers, mountain climbers, and Mongolian lamas. It also traces…
TIBETAN WAXWORKS OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
The waxwork is a new medium of Buddhist materiality that now coexists with the metal statue, the photograph, and the painted scroll in the Tibetan cultural sphere. It is usually departed Buddhist masters who are immortalized as wax effigies. The hyperrealistic aesthetics extends their presence among devotees since wax can be formed and…
1 February 1913: Sun or glare glasses / ai tai
Sun glasses / Ai Tai Made before 1913 Made in China Now in the collection of National Museums Liverpool 50.21.28 If you are thinking, ‘this doesn’t look Tibetan’ you are right. One of my research interests is in how to recover and highlight Tibetan histories inherent in objects that do not look Tibetan. In this…
June 1891: Bone Apron / rus gyan
Bone Apron / rus gyan Possibly made before 1891 Possibly made in Nepal Now in the collection of the British Museum 1911,0616,1 In my previous posts on the oracle mirror and amulet container I may have led you to believe that museums know the precise provenance of every single object in their collection. That is,…
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