Decolonizing Dunhuang: Tibetan contributions to a national site in the 20th century
Location
Lingnan University / Online Session via Zoom
Start Date
20-5-2021 4:30 PM
End Date
20-5-2021 5:40 PM
Description
This lecture addresses the historiography of the Dunhuang site and surrounding caves in the 20th century. Efforts to collect and process the rich knowledge associated with the site's long history begins in 1900. In the first half of the century there are two distinct phases of data acquisition: the foreign colonial phase associated with British, French, Japanese, Russian, and American from ca. 1906-1920; and a second intense phase conducted by artists and nationalist government officials during the Sino-Japanese war, ca. 1937-1947. I argue in this talk ─ part of a larger, forthcoming study on the 1940s ─ that it is precisely during the war that Dunhuang becomes national symbol when it functions as a surrogate for the cultural heritage that is hidden during wartime air raids.
The Educational Ministry sent official expeditions to investigate northwest archaeology, art, history, and natural history. Individual artists' teams also visited the region with the aim to collect its contents in ways relevant to a society during wartime. Zhang Daqian's (1899-1983) private group of students, family members, and Buddhist artists from neighboring Qinghai periodized and copied mural contents. The success and popularity of the team's copies can be linked to the knowledge that An Ji, Shawo Tsering (1922-2004) and the other 3 Tibetan painters team members brought from Reb gong-the region between Labrang and Kumbum monasteries. This lecture traces this knowledge transfer and makes broader theoretical claims that decolonizes Dunhuang from generic dynastic terminology applied during the 1940s by Zhang.
Recommended Citation
Fraser, S. E. (2021, May). Decolonizing Dunhuang: Tibetan contributions to a national site in the 20th century. Presented at Then and Now: Collecting Art and Exhibiting Cultures in Asia Conference, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
Decolonizing Dunhuang: Tibetan contributions to a national site in the 20th century
Lingnan University / Online Session via Zoom
This lecture addresses the historiography of the Dunhuang site and surrounding caves in the 20th century. Efforts to collect and process the rich knowledge associated with the site's long history begins in 1900. In the first half of the century there are two distinct phases of data acquisition: the foreign colonial phase associated with British, French, Japanese, Russian, and American from ca. 1906-1920; and a second intense phase conducted by artists and nationalist government officials during the Sino-Japanese war, ca. 1937-1947. I argue in this talk ─ part of a larger, forthcoming study on the 1940s ─ that it is precisely during the war that Dunhuang becomes national symbol when it functions as a surrogate for the cultural heritage that is hidden during wartime air raids.
The Educational Ministry sent official expeditions to investigate northwest archaeology, art, history, and natural history. Individual artists' teams also visited the region with the aim to collect its contents in ways relevant to a society during wartime. Zhang Daqian's (1899-1983) private group of students, family members, and Buddhist artists from neighboring Qinghai periodized and copied mural contents. The success and popularity of the team's copies can be linked to the knowledge that An Ji, Shawo Tsering (1922-2004) and the other 3 Tibetan painters team members brought from Reb gong-the region between Labrang and Kumbum monasteries. This lecture traces this knowledge transfer and makes broader theoretical claims that decolonizes Dunhuang from generic dynastic terminology applied during the 1940s by Zhang.
Additional Information
Due to the copyright issue, there is only an audio recording available for Prof. Sarah Fraser’s lecture.