Emerging from folk reverence and faith in the natural world (gods), temples (as centers of folk life) become a natural forum for spontaneous gatherings: the intersection of human and spiritual beings and the congregation of all walks of life. Before the modern term of “museum” was coined, these sites of object collection had already existed in the sphere of communal life. Made possible with collective contribution from community members, this form of collecting has been initiated with a shared awareness and embodied knowledge and techniques within specific contexts and structures. Almost every community in Taiwan comes with a temple, an eco-museum co-built by its members. Museums are not in cities afar, but right next door. A temple is a museum, a literal epicenter of faith, culture, information, and general attitudes that every community revolves around. It is an eco-museum showcasing every aspect of life in the community. A temple encompasses perspectives and relationships, faith, and faith-related objects. Because of faith, gaps between perspectives are bridged, and flows of ideas may converge. Differences create diversity which nonetheless is often encompassed in the vibrant synchronicity of faith.
The contemporary discussion of open access and localization of museums, in fact, has been found in the founding reasons of temples in established communities. Such museums are not halls of collectibles for the elite class but established on the basis of a humanistic relationship. The space is empowered by people of the faith with purported missions. The entire system is composed of space, architecture, components, objects, symbols ad rituals, as well as knowledge systems and contextual relationships behind these practices. Such relationships emerge from faith and encompass connections between humans and between this world and beyond. For these relationships to take place, the indispensable medium is craft. From the perspective of human needs, craft fulfills three main purposes: functionality, aesthetics, and faith. Emerging from people’s need for faith, faith craft is the connection in form between humans and gods. The collective, spontaneous and autonomous faith of people bestows the space with spiritual purposes. All material components created around the spirit of space can be considered as the embodiment of craft, including artisans and their interactions with materials, techniques, processes, rules, symbols, and ethics.
It is not to simplify the spirituality, rituality, mysticism, and collective faith embedded in the overall arrangements of the temple and religious space into subjective or objective visualization. Nor could they be deconstructed into metaphysical abstraction or single-track knowledge or judgement. The system of living faith reveals the entirety of relationships while objects are the key medium. “A Temple is a Museum” exhibition takes on the perspective of craft to examine the connection among craft, relationship, and faith. Following the energy flow of humble collective faith, the exhibition reveals, reflects, and engages material elements and animating forces converged in the temple.
As an arena for multitudes of folk relationships to take place, the temple reflects daily folkways, constitutes the ecology of human-earth-universe-being interactions, and also displays the aesthetics of local folk life in real time. In this open and fluid arena, inter-human relationships establish, shift, and proliferate; physical and mental distances shrink; communal connection and awareness thus emerge. Psychologists McMillan and Chavis(1986)define such awareness as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to being together.” This shared faith takes place between humans and gods, as well as within humans and gods. The relationship between humans and gods is the most obvious; the pure trust in invisible mystic forces bestows rituals and ritualistic objects with an effect of psychological stability. Hence, they are able to facilitate dialogues at a deeper spiritual level and experiences of divine communion.
“A Temple is a Museum” exhibition centers around the “temple compound”, where social interactions and daily folk life are taking place and readily observable. It also provides a front-row view of the magnificence of temple architectures and decorative crafts. The temple compound holds a living space where the divine and the secular intersect and intermingle. It further showcases the spontaneity of the lifestyle: a place for all sorts of socializing activities such as conversation, tea-making, chess-playing, and open-air operas. In the slack season, villagers practice the music of Nanguan and Beiguan, musical and martial processions, as well as folk dances here. Not only to display and continue their cultural traditions, but these ritualistic bodily techniques by themselves also constitute vibrant and tantalizing visual and performing arts. A visible and tangible material craft that channels awe and respect for the universe is an aesthetic symbol of the spontaneous collective faith. Through seasonal festivals, processions, pilgrimages, and propitiation altars, we can experience the high-spirited temple culture, which further evinces the autonomous, spontaneous and humble nature of Taiwanese folkways.
Entering the temple from the front court, side walls display carvings of ancient fables and romances. Official tablets in the temple often carry copious cultural symbols. The donor registry on the wall suggests a relationship of respect and reverence between humans and gods. The assembly hall next to the main structure, a space for banquets, practices, and rehearsals, as well as information exchange in the past, today serves as the community daycare center, for us to catch a snippet of changes in the roles the temple plays. An arena for people to gather and for relationships to take place, the temple pulls together a dense social network. In Relational Aesthetics, French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud argues that a holistic relationship between humans and gods (nature) and within humans and gods is constructed in a specific space. The quest about the relationship between humans and “gods/nature” implies a much more open ecology in which humans, gods, nature, culture, and all other beings are related, and social practices of arts and crafts occur. The parallel and overlapping spaces of the temple and the museum allow the relational aesthetics to transpire, proliferate and evolve into three qualities: “communication and encounter”, “engagement and collaboration”, and “camaraderie and coexistence”. Each category is built up with “four relational elements”, space, architecture, craft, and artisan, to showcase “five relationship crafts” that emerged from Taiwanese folk faith: rituals of life cycle, seasonal festivals, temple ceremonies, faith, and customs, as well as architecture and decoration. All of them embody the genius loci of the temple.
The exhibition unfolds into three dimensions: “communication and encounter”, “engagement and collaboration”, and “camaraderie and coexistence.” They represent three formulas that trigger relationships in an orderly yet intertwined fashion. In the section on “communication and encounter”, the temple compound serves as a starting point for exploring inter-human relationships. Entrenched in scenarios of daily folk life and camaraderie, visitors get to feel and touch crafts within a hand’s reach. Entering the divine space in the temple, through encounters with gods, visitors are able to discover multiple links with folk crafts in the section of “engagement and collaboration”. It is obvious that the trust in invisible divine forces undergirds many faith rituals behind the folk culture. At the intersection of craft techniques and processes, craft reflects the personality, life philosophy, and values of artisans. The section on “camaraderie and coexistence” reveals the connection that emerged from the “camaraderie” between gods as represented by the intimate fraternity of local temples. Visible and invisible social networks between gods and humans are thus formulated in the folk society. Facing rapid and extreme changes and confusions in post-Pandemic life, it is hoped that under sublime blessings, Green Craft that fuses faith, trust, and confidence may be able to offer comforting and restorative effects in repairing the relationships within humans, between humans and nature, as well as with the inner self. Not merely a support and a companion, craft also manifests spiritual aesthetics that holds the potential to lift all from everyday life.
In the contemporary society functioning with digital technology, the internet, and 3D virtual world, it is vital to start converting the DNA of folk crafts into a data format that may further archive and unfurl the temple culture of different generations. Bringing the ecology of craft together with different expertise, the project aims to collect, consolidate, edit and reinterpret long fragmented and broken knowledge of craft, which after sharing, interacting, and co-creating with shareholders may be able to reconstruct some of the missing links in the craft’s DNA. The future of the temple craft chain may be explored and envisioned by joining temple craft and the creative industry. Looking back, we see the preservation and conservation of temple craft; looking ahead, the innovative development of the temple culture. With practices of faith, life, and academics, a hybrid knowledge system of Taiwanese temple craft attempts to map out the grand contour of folk crafts online as well as to propose visions for future crafts by introducing concepts of contemporary design and intellectual property through collaboration across localities, ethnicities, generations, and industries, on this rich soil of folk culture.
“A Temple is a Museum” exhibition takes a holistic approach to capture the aesthetic stillness of living experiences by mix-matching, overlapping, and penetrating layers of images and videos of objects, people, and documentaries. The technological interventions of the point cloud, AR, and VR contribute to a perspective of virtual omniscience from all angles - horizontal, vertical, bird's-eye, and result in a total creation of Meta-craft, which demonstrates why the temple is the inter-disciplinary culmination of faith, folk life, architecture, craft, music, visual art and performing art. In incessant waves of penetration, stimulation, convergence, and restructuring, craft evolves from works into a set of philosophical thoughts, an ethical action, a process of rediscovering values, and a holistic vision to engage social and cultural issues. Under the wave of “humanistic” and “nature-based” green thoughts, Green Craft continues promoting inter-disciplinary collaboration following principles of natural, regenerative, inclusive, balanced, and life-giving. Embodying such altruistic values, this new trend of contemporary craft may also facilitate unique spiritual experiences, and chances for self-healing, for both creators and spectators.
Taking on the concept and technological application of Meta-Craft, this exhibition attempts to present the collective spirit of Taiwanese people – respect for nature, humanistic vision, and artisan persistence – as well as the energy of folk life through multiple perspectives of real/virtual, macro/micro, elevation/depression, spot/path/network. Relationships that emerged from faith evolve into a living organic ecology of nature, society, and all beings through craft. A temple is a museum, a form of information exchange or a material representation of relationships within humans, and between humans and gods. Highly artisanal, spiritual, symbolic, ritualistic, public, and societal, the temple is both classical and contemporary and it connects both the past and the future. This temporal and spatial thread encapsulates both faith craft and community craft.
“A Temple is a Museum” exhibition is a moving, organic and participatory museum. Embarking from faith, this museum encompasses temples, objects, followers, worshippers, and the worshipped, as well as supporters and the supported. This exhibition further features spots and paths on the map of Faith Craft, the establishment of the Gene Bank of Craft (artisans and their spirit, knowledge, techniques, and cultural symbols), the launching of Craftology, as well as the linkages of communities, knowledge and the ecology of craft. The contemporary faces of the temple, such as craft properties (preservation and conservation) and faith-based empowerment (creative values) certainly also encounter challenges from today’s environment and beget adapted changes in human-god communication, such as replacing spirit money with rice and green firecrackers. With the demographic shift, the space for fraternity and entertainment in the old times is transformed into a community service center. The temple, created and recycled following the flow of the collective faith, embodies the accumulation of cultural assets and future-facing contemporary innovation.
Exhibition Date: 2022 /12 / 23–2023 / 05 /21
Venue: Main Hall Gallery 2, Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum
Address: No. 1 Tongling Road, Dashu, Kaohsiung 84049, Taiwan