Candidate: Ms. Vijayashree C S
Advisor: Prof. Carol Upadhya
Co-advisor: Dr. Smrithi Haricharan
Date: Friday, December 9, 2022
Time: 11:30 am
Venue: Lecture Hall, NIAS
Abstract:
The meanings of socially significant objects are culturally constructed, negotiated and interpreted by actors in various ways across different social contexts. This process is particularly complex in the case of ritual objects as they travel outside their original domains of religious significance and practice. The thesis studies the contemporary lives of the masks and sculptures of the pantheistic Bhutaradhane tradition of spirit worship in the Tulunadu region of coastal Karnataka. Various kinds of spirits, ancestors, heroes, totems and animals are venerated in this tradition, which is known for its dramatic ritual, visual, and material elements. The unique metal masks and wooden sculptures that are integral parts of the Bhuta ritual complex have traversed to other sites and contexts, where they are endowed with new meanings and values. In particular, Bhuta masks and sculptures have a prominent presence in museums across the country and abroad, where their artistic qualities are foregrounded. In addition, these objects are commoditized and sold as collectables in art and antique markets. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I examine the diverse processes of meaning-making in these diverse sites of encounter – the ritual space, museums, and different kinds of markets.
The thesis situates the research questions within literature drawn from critical heritage studies, cultural anthropology, and museum studies. It first examines the uses and meanings of Bhuta objects in the ritual sphere, and more broadly how they have been constructed as emblematic of the Tulunadu region’s unique culture and heritage. Next, the thesis traces the circulation of these objects into two non-ritual spheres – the museum and the market. The movement of Bhuta masks and sculptures through different spheres of value does not imply that one type of value supersedes another. On the contrary, these objects have travelled through historical time and across space to various venues, where their values and meanings are constantly remediated and reimagined. The thesis seeks to understand the co-existing and conflicting meanings of the objects, and processes through which they are endowed with new meanings, by locating their travels within larger shifts in regional, state-level and national cultural politics. By mapping the entangled relations between the objects, the communities that claim and promote them, and the social contexts in which they are produced and consumed, the thesis provides an in-depth account of the contemporary lives of Bhuta masks and sculpture