Abstract
Although religious culture often focuses on the divine and otherworldly, material religion recognizes that this divinity is often grounded in physical objects. Vernacular religious scholars have documented increased attachment to bodily experiences in religion, with experience-based and emotionally focused forms of worship gaining popularity in many different religious traditions. With increased focus on the physical objects, museums are left to grapple with how to display objects that are actively touched, worn, and held during religious services or practices and to curate objects that are ephemeral or short-lived, including candles, incense, temporary altars, and offerings. How do museums curate objects whose religious importance is tied to senses other than sight, such as touch and feeling? How are ephemeral religious objects displayed in museum settings and what religious traditions are often excluded from museum collections and curation because of focus on long-lasting religious objects? What is lost from exhibitions about contemporary material religion when ephemeral objects are excluded? This paper focuses on how museums can complicate religious representation by expanding the material religion that they highlight and seeks to explore the inclusion of ephemeral objects in museum curation as a way to broaden visitors’ understandings of religious material culture in the United States today. This paper is also a call to action to complicate the traditional display of religious objects, to engage visitors of all sensory needs with these objects, to incorporate more visitors’ senses into the exhibition, and to highlight more religious traditions and experiences.
Presenters
Emma CieslikStudent, Masters of Art, George Washington University, District of Columbia, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Religious Studies, Ephemeral Objects, Material Religion, Religious Representation
