Culture

Three young fellows supported by IDRC’s Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar are tackling crucial issues in women’s rights, economic empowerment, and climate change through their research and advocacy endeavours.

Nestled in northern Karnataka, the Badami cave temples of India are adorned with a unique blend of intricate carvings that draw religious motifs from Shaivite, Vaishnavite and Jain traditions. Learn more about these 2nd-century rock-cut shrines that bear testament to ancient Indian royal patronage and religious syncretism.

The Punjab regions of India and Pakistan bear witness to a centuries-old, laborious tradition of embroidering cloth with silk threads. Called Vari da Bagh and Bagh, meaning “‘garden”’, these textiles are ritually significant and are adorned with geometric patterns or motifs that draw from the everyday life and culture of the region.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, religious ivory statuettes sculpted in colonial Goa sported a unique amalgamation of European and ancient Indian symbolisms. Discover the history of this Indo-Portuguese iconography and its ties to local evangelism, slavery and colonial export.

Amongst the earliest objects unearthed from Gandhara are carved stone dishes depicting guardian spirits, mythical creatures and scenes of merrymaking. Despite the carvings being rich in artistic and cultural information, they reveal little about the functions of these objects. Learn more about these enigmatic artefacts, and the material history of ancient Gandhara.

Lingnan University and Harvard University jointly hosted the Harvard-Lingnan Symposium: “The Avant-Garde X Hong Kong and the New South” at the Lingnan@WestKowloon at M+ Tower of West Kowloon Cultural District from 4 to 5 December 2023. The symposium brought together 18 distinguished scholars from top universities worldwide, along with three prominent Sinophone writers: Ban Yu from Northern China, Chen Chuncheng from Southern China, and Lee Wai-yi from Hong Kong. The symposium attracted an online audience of more than 600 and 100 scholars and students were present at the venue. Taking Hong Kong as both a physical nexus and symbolic vantage point, the symposium explored the theoretical prospects of the avant-garde in relation to the emerging discourse of the “New South”, a concept derived from recent studies in Chinese literature.

Academician Fan-sen Wang has been awarded the 2023 Humboldt Research Award by Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, in recognition of his achievements and impact on historical scholarship. He is the first Taiwanese scholar in the field of humanities to receive this honor.

Since nearly the twelfth century, painters, called ‘patuas’, lived around the Jagannatha Temple at Puri in Odisha, painting tales from Hindu and Islamic religious mythologies, and local legends onto cloth scrolls. Discover how the rituals and festivals of the temple, and its principal deities — Jagannatha, Balabhadra, and Subhadra — inspire these paintings.

The Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) under the School of Creative Arts (SCA) at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) proudly announces the launch of the inaugural “Art Futures Awards”, an international art award which is the first of its kind in Asia.

Created by western India’s nomadic Vaghri community, mata ni pachedi is a tradition of cloth painting dating back 300 years. Originally meant as canopies for shrines and as objects of ritual worship, these textiles depict a pantheon of local goddesses surrounded by regional motifs. Read on to understand how printing, painting and cloth come together in religious consumerism.

… all while discovering how the Universe evolved, how galaxies form and where the elements come from.

Since the 3rd century CE, master puppeteers of southern India have brought the epics of the subcontinent to life through Tholu Bommalata, a form of shadow puppetry performed with elaborate, life-sized leather puppets. Come discover this intricate musical theatre tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation and continues to thrive to this day.

The Cholamandal Artists' Village was established in 1966 to encourage self-sufficiency, community living and the creation of a South Indian visual identity. Since then, it has undergone a transformative journey. Discover its history and achievements.

Between the seventh and ninth centuries, south peninsular India experienced a cultural renaissance, resulting from the extensive patronage of a powerful dynasty, the Pallavas. Discover their unique contributions to the arts and literature of the time, which led to the creation of a new, Dravidian idiom of temple architecture in South Asia.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are the confirmation of a route that humans took to migrate from Africa, how pheromones can influence beetle behavior, and microplastics found in cloud water.

Amidst the political tumult of nineteenth-century colonial India, Abanindranath Tagore — an artist from Bengal — set out to invent a new ‘Indian’ visual language, rejecting European artistic ideals. He pioneered a style that combined themes from mythology, history, and rural life, with elements from India’s miniature painting traditions. This would evolve into the Bengal School — a movement that reimagined a distinctly Indian approach to art. Tagore influenced an entire generation of artists and left a lasting impact on the quest for Indian identity during the struggle for Independence.

Lingnan University's Alumni Relations Team of Office of Institutional Advancement and Public Affairs (OIAPA) has organised its first-ever month-long themed café at the Jao Tsung-I Academy (JTIA) in Lai Chi Kok from 24 August till 23 September. With the aim of “Sharing Lingnan History with the community”, the “Lingnanian pop-up café” features unique characteristics of Lingnan's culture, heritage, and development milestones, along with “Red Grey Special Menu” and “Reading Corner” with historical publications. This initiative aims to enable the public to gain insights into the university’s storied history and remarkable achievements while fostering connections among alumni and Lingnanians, inviting everyone to savor the Lingnan legacy while enjoying the aroma of coffee.

In the mid-sixteenth century, Mughal emperor Humayun brought two Persian master painters to India, who not only established an imperial atelier but also began a major tradition of miniature painting in South Asia — Mughal manuscript paintings. This painting tradition flourished for centuries, enjoying royal patronage and resulted in the illustration of significant literary texts, scriptures, biographies, dynastic histories and scientific literature. Known for their naturalism and intricacy, Mughal paintings also combined a range of influences — Persian, Indian and European — and were often made collaboratively by artists and other specialists in the imperial ateliers, known as kitabkhanas. Discover the legacy and lasting influence of this painting tradition and its eventual decline in the late eighteenth century.

Traditionally woven in Gujarat, India, mashru — meaning ‘lawful’ or ‘permitted’ in Arabic — was invented to allow Muslims to wear silk garments despite injunctions against it in the Hadith, an important Islamic religious text offering teachings and moral guidance. The fabric’s innovative weaving technique, where each silk warp crosses six cotton wefts, keeps silk from touching the body when worn. Whilst the earliest visual references to mashru date back to the seventeenth-century in the Deccan region of southern India, the fabric has lived many lives, gaining popularity amongst Islamic populations in India, West Asia and Africa as it was traded along Indian Ocean maritime routes.

Greetings from JHSSR, Horizon is proud to announce the highly acclaimed publication of the latest issue of 2023, Vol. 5, Issue 1 (Jul. 2023). The issue is now live at the Journal’s webpage. You may explore our range of contributions within this Issue. Explore this issue, click the links below.

In the early seventeenth century, a new painting tradition — characterised by its use of bold colours, gilding and gem-setting — emerged in the Thanjavur region of southern India. While Thanjavur paintings originally featured gods and saints, the tradition grew to incorporate secular subjects owing to a range of influences over the next several centuries, including Mughal, Maratha, and European art. Thanjavur paintings continue to be popular as memorabilia and worship objects, and are one the most recognisable South Indian painting styles today.

Backstrap looms are portable weaving contraptions with a component that is tied around the weaver’s waist, thereby engaging the weaver’s entire body in the process of creating textile out of warp and weft. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that these looms, which presumably date as far back as the Bronze Age in China, have been, and continue to be, used by indigenous communities worldwide.

Illuminating the molecular ballet in living cells, Charting the voyage of marine plastics, A glimpse into the origins of life & Earliest human journeys to Asia. Plus Submissions open for Asia Research News 2024. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.

From big, permanent structures within imambaras to palm-sized ones made of cigarette boxes and coloured paper, tazias are replicas of the tomb of Imam Hussain which play a significant role in the rituals observed during Muharram. They were initially popularised by the Mughals for those royals who were unable to visit the actual tomb but the tradition continues, even today, when photographic images of the tomb are widely available — as a mode of creative expression or, perhaps more, as a performance of homage.

New findings from a cave in northern Laos add to a growing body of evidence that modern humans arrived in Southeast Asia over 80,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

Elaborately carved with female figures and floral motifs, ringstones dating to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC are amongst the most enigmatic artefacts of Mauryan and Shunga art. Scholars continue to speculate about their use, and believe that they may have been used as amulets and ritualistic objects or designators. Discover more about these ancient artefacts through this article.

Tam Pà Ling, a cave in northern Laos, reveals new secrets about our earliest human journeys from Africa through to Australia.

Beginning in the fifteenth century, until the nineteenth century, artists turned to classical music for inspiration, combining painting, allegory and music to create a genre known as Ragamala painting. Ragas — melodic frameworks central to Indian classical music — date back to nearly the fifth century, and each major raga is meant to evoke a particular mood or atmosphere, a season and a time of day. Ragamala paintings are distinctive for their nuanced depiction of emotions through environmental metaphors and imagery that often includes a hero or a heroine or both.

From its origins as a wide sash worn as a part of ceremonial, military and everyday dress in the Indian subcontinent, to becoming a part of British military clothing that was thought to guard against cholera, the cummerbund has had a storied legacy. Read about how this humble accessory evolved over the years.

In operation from 1863 to 2016, Bourne and Shepherd was one of the first commercial photography studios in India, known for architectural, landscape and topographical photographs, as well as portraits of Indian nobility, British officials and European travellers. While these images found traction as souvenirs, the studio’s photographs were also widely utilised in the scientific community for the topographical and sociological study of the Indian subcontinent.