Day 1: Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context

Portraits have commonly been understood as naturalistic likenesses of human beings, centred on the face. The work of scholars such as Jean Borgatti, Richard Brilliant (1990) and Joanna Woodall (1997) opened the field in conceptualising portraiture as a truly multi-local genre, foregrounding the relational and performative processes of portraiture. This conference addresses the performative function of portraiture in constructing subjectivities in Asian contexts, in order to reveal important cultural, social, religious, and philosophical ideas key to understanding particular societies and cultures within Asia and its diasporas.

The symposium focuses on the portraiture of Asia with two specific purposes in mind. First, to decentre studies of Asian portraiture from Eurocentric conceptions of subjecthood and thus to expand the field of portraiture studies; second, to foreground the connections, transfers and tensions articulated by portraiture within trans-Asian contexts. The focus on Asia should not be read as exclusionary, but rather as the intent to initiate a dialogue with existing research on the portraiture of other regions such as Africa and Europe. Thirty-five years after Borgatti, Brilliant and Woodall’s contributions to the field of portraiture studies, the symposium ‘Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context ca. 1000-Present Day’ proposes to take stock of a changing field by contributing the scholarship of art, cultural and literary history in the trans-Asian context.

Cover Image: Pha Ouan Aphakaro (right) poses with a wax portrait statue he has commissioned of his preceptor Somdet Pha Sangkhalat Dhammayana Maha Thela, Supreme Patriarch of Laos, in a workshop in Nong Khai or Bangkok, Thailand, 1990. Collection of Vat Saen Sukharam, Luang Prabang. Buddhist Archive No. B8958R.

PLEASE NOTE: This is the event page for the first day of this three-day conference only. Please sign up separately for each day that you wish to attend. Registration links to Day 2 and Day 3 are below.

Day 2: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/day-2-making-the-subject-of-portraiture-in-a-trans-asian-context-tickets-1053036780357

Day 3: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/day-3-making-the-subject-of-portraiture-in-a-trans-asian-context-tickets-1053038736207

Please refer to the below link for a map of the SOAS buildings.

https://www.soas.ac.uk/virtual-tour/

Registrations close on 22 November 2024.