Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Burma in art'

Buddhism is an integral part of Burmese culture. While Buddhism has been practiced in Burma for around 1500 years and evidence of the religion is found throughout the country, nothing surpasses the concentration of Buddhist monuments found at Bagan. Bagan represents not only the beginnings of a unified Burmese country, but also symbolises Burmese 'ownership' of Theravada Buddhism. ¶ While there is an abundance of artistic material throughout Burma, the study of Burmese Buddhist art by western scholars remains in it infancy due to historical events. In recent years, opportunities for further research have increased, and Bagan, as the region of Buddhism's principal flowering in Burma, is the starting point for the study of Burmese Buddhist art. To date, there has been no systematic review of the stylistic or iconographic characteristics of the Buddhist images of this period. This thesis proposes, for the first time, a chronological framework for sculptural depictions of the Buddha, and identifies the characteristics of Buddha images for each identified phase. The framework and features identified should provide a valuable resource for the dating of future discoveries of Buddhist sculpture at Bagan. ¶ As epigraphic material from this period is very scant, the reconstruction of Bagan's history has relied heavily to this point in time on non-contemporaneous accounts from Burma, and foreign chronicles. The usefulness of Bagan's visual material in broadening our understanding of the early Bagan period has been largely overlooked. This is addressed by relating the identified stylistic trends with purported historical events and it is demonstrated that, in the absence of other contemporaneous material, visual imagery is a valid and valuable resource for both supporting and refuting historical events. ¶ Buddhist imagery of Bagan widely regarded to represent the beginnings of 'pure' Theravada practice that King Anawrahta, the first Burman ruler, actively encouraged. This simplistic view has limited the potential of the imagery to provide a greater understanding of Buddhist practice at Bagan, and subsequently, the cross-cultural interactions that may have been occurring. In this light the narrative sculptural imagery of the period is interrogated against the principal Mahayana and Theravada texts relating to the life of Gotama Buddha. This review, along with the discussion regarding potential agencies for stylistic change, reveals that during the early Bagan period, Buddhism was an eclectic mix of both Theravada and Mahayana, which integrated with pre-existing spiritual traditions. Towards the end of the early Bagan period, trends were emerging which would lead to a distinctly Burmese form of Buddhist practice and visual expression.

Héritier de l’universalisme humaniste de Rabindranath Tagore par sa formation à Śāntiniketan en Inde, le ditpère de l’art moderne birman Bagyi Aung Soe (1923/24–1990) se consacra à figurer les réalités ultimes enfonction des enseignements bouddhiques. Pour ce faire, il mit au point un langage pictural qu’il baptisa lapeinture « manaw maheikdi dat » qui signifie la création artistique par la culture mentale. Ses référencesvisuelles, variant de la physique à l’ésotérisme bouddhique, de la culture populaire à la poésie, comprennent toutce qui fut à sa portée intellectuelle et spirituelle dans la Birmanie socialiste militaire de 1962 à 1988. Soninsistance sur la somme des héritages propres à cet espace-temps, de même que son dépassement descloisonnements conceptuels selon les disciplines, les frontières nationales ou les divisions chronologiques, exigeun récit conçu au regard des significations contextuelles, un récit adapté et affranchi du modèle prétendumentinternational de l’art euraméricain. Afin de proposer un récit sur comment il compta rendre manifestel’insaisissable selon les circonstances propres au contexte de sa vie, nous mettons l’accent sur les conditionsaccueillant la genèse et la diffusion de cette production artistique dite « la plus moderne de l’art moderne » enraison de sa dimension transnationale et transhistorique. À partir d’une sélection parmi plus de quatre milleoeuvres et de centaines de témoignages écrits et oraux recueillis, nous examinons non seulement la fabrication decette peinture qui reste aussi non étudiée en Birmanie qu’inconnue de la scène internationale, mais aussi lesmanières dont nous pouvons la lire et la voir
A student at Rabindranath Tagore’s ashram in Śāntiniketan, India, Myanmar’s “father of modern art” BagyiAung Soe (1923/24–1990) embraced his Indian gurus’ concept of art and the artist. In the spirit of the laureate’shumanist universalism, he strove to picture Buddhist teachings. His signature idiom christened “manawmaheikdi dat”, which has yet to be studied in Myanmar and is virtually unknown at the international level, reliedon meditation to achieve advanced mental power in order to picture the most elemental components of allphenomena, and its visual references included all that was possibly accessible under socialist rule in Burma(1962–1988). With little regard for artistic conventions and categorisations according to discipline, nation andchronology, Aung Soe drew from the sum of artistic, intellectual and spiritual traditions defining his space andtime, varying from quantum physics to esoteric Buddhism, from popular culture to poetry. The nature of hisapproach, method and subject matter, coupled with his country’s exceptional circumstances, demands a newnarrative of art that is unfettered by the assumptions inherent to the purportedly international framework ofEuramerican modern art. Focusing on the contextual significances of the genesis and reception of manawmaheikdi dat painting, this dissertation examines the making, the reading and the seeing of this pictoriallanguage whose transnational and transhistorical dimension renders it “the most modern of modern art”. Basedon a selection of the artist’s works and writings, as well as witnesses of his life and practice, we attempt a storyof how he pictured and made manifest the formless on his own terms

This practice-based thesis presents the results of experimental research devoted to ethnic tourism among the Kayan minority and has involved the interconnection of artistic and anthropological languages. Known worldwide for the traditional female custom of wearing a long coiled brass necklace aimed at causing a considerable extension to the neck, the Kayan are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group originally from Burma. Due to the prolonged civil war in their own homeland, a large number of Kayan recently fled from Burma to refuge in neighbouring Thailand. Here, over the past years, in response to the “incisive” tourism policy promoted by the Thai government in the northern areas of the country, some families, abandoning the refugee camps where they were hosted, have been resettled in several new villages open to tourists, on payment of a modest entrance fee. Here the Kayan, their culture and their daily life, have been transformed into an authentic tourist attraction capable of drawing about 10,000 visitors a year. Founded on a strictly “visual media primitivist” approach and inspired by its peculiar aesthetics – as systematically presented in the first, theoretical, section of the thesis –, the enquiry involves a multimedia perspective. In such a context, analogue photography and filmmaking, creative writing and sound composition have been combined to give concrete shape to an original artwork firmly grounded in ethnographic practice. The choice, far from being a solely arbitrary and subjective option, has indeed been motivated by the critical employment of specific theoretical assumptions of some of the most recent streams of anthropology and epistemology of the human sciences. The multidisciplinary methodology adopted to develop the research, as well as the multifaceted language employed to display its results, represent an innovative and experimental way of approaching the complex theme of cultural identity in present-day Asian contexts, as well as of highlighting the most aesthetic and philosophic implications connected to the revival of analogue vintage media in contemporary artistic practice.

This practice-based thesis focuses on the Emirati burqa or ‘mask’, a form of face covering worn by the majority of Emirati women in the United Arab Emirates until the late 1960s that reveals the eyes but does not cover the hair or body. Framed by Daniel Miller and Aida Kanafani’s theories of material culture and embodiment that focus on dress as an intimate sensory object, this practice-based thesis is the first in-depth study of the Emirati burqa that engages with the histories and materiality of the burqa as an intimate object once made and worn by Emirati women. At the core of this thesis is women’s practice: the practices of women burqa makers, the diverse female practices of burqa wearing and my practice as a woman artist from the UAE. Through experiments with traditional craft materials, inscription methods, workshop initiatives, film, photography and installation, my engagement is with performing the material culture of the female burqa as a response to its disappearing practices and its previously little recorded history. The thesis first analyses the history of the burqa face covering in the Arabian peninsula through a specific focus on the written and visual accounts of mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth-century British travellers in Arabia. It then examines and records the material craft of Emirati burqa-making based upon interviews with burqa makers and textile producers and accompanying ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the UAE and India. This includes photographic documentation of the processes involved in the production of the burqa textile, a study of burqa manufacturing brands and packaging, and an analysis of the material construction of the burqa and how it is worn in the UAE. Based on interviews in the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar and a variety of visual and textual sources, the thesis identifies the different types of Emirati burqa in relation to age, status, and regional identities. It further shows that the Emirati burqa differs from those worn in the neighbouring Gulf States of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia, and focuses on burqa wearing practices and associated uses of the burqa textile in the UAE. Engaging with these research findings, the culmination of the thesis is the body of art works exhibited in the 2014 London exhibition, ‘An Intimate Object’, that re-animates the burqa as a living object with its own history and new contemporary meanings. Focusing on the significance of the body and senses in knowledge production, the art practice shows the burqa has ‘a voice’ in a conversation that draws upon past traditions referencing protection and its value as a personal and precious object. The burqa speaks, its indigo residue bleeds as an active witness to its lost past. It also plays a part in rediscovery or keeping the past of this material object alive through contemporary art practice as an aesthetic and political strategy.

In 1988, the military government in Myanmar abandoned the socialist ideology and isolationism that had shaped the state since independence, embarking on a transition to an open economy and engagement of the international community. ¶ Where socialism had failed, economic development and partnerships with former insurgent groups became the new strategy to advance the military’s security agenda. The primary goal of the security agenda is to promote state consolidation based on a unitary state structure, and according to military values and interests. However, the military’s goals are antagonistic to much of the country’s population, especially its ethnic minority groups. Consequently, the military lacks moral authority, and is preoccupied with maintaining its power and seeking legitimacy. The state is oriented to regime maintenance rather than policy implementation, leaving the regime without autonomy to pursue policy goals outside of its security agenda. ¶ The changing nature of the state, and state-society relations during the period of transition is revealed by trends in social development. Specifically, this thesis explores these issues through a case study of the health system. One impact of the economic transition and the military’s new nation-building strategy has been the abandonment of social equity as an ideological goal of the state. Even under socialism, state capacity to promote health was weak. In the transitional state, weak state capacity is now combined with a political incapacity of the regime to make public health a priority. In the quest for performance legitimacy, the military government is pursuing a narrow conception of development that values economic growth. Putting the state’s scarce resources into social development does not fit into this development strategy. Government expenditure on health has declined steadily since 1988, and health bureaucrats struggle to implement government policy. Standards in the public health system are very low, and most people seek health care in the private and informal health sectors. ¶ Therefore, the military regime’s inability to achieve state consolidation, which leaves it preoccupied with its own legitimacy crisis, is a significant factor in the inability of the Myanmar state to promote social development. The process of economic transition from a socialist economy has exacerbated this through the withdrawal of the state from financing and delivery of social services, resulting in increasing inequity of access to these services.

Cette thèse étudie l’apparition, dans la mise en scène picturale des récits bouddhiques du début du 18e siècle, d’hommes et de femmes du peuple, discutant, se querellant, s’aimant, ou simplement dépeints dans leur quotidien, sans rapport avec ces récits dont ils occupent pourtant le premier plan. En parallèle à des personnages hauts en couleurs (fumeurs de narguilé, amateurs d’alcool et de femmes) d’origine indienne, portugaise et métisse, dont les noms propres figurent dans le cartouche des légendes des scènes, et qui caractérisent la production picturale de la région de la Chindwin, des quidams dépeints dans leur quotidien (cavaliers, vachers, chasseurs d’oiseau de mauvais augure, enfants accourus voir le Bodhisatta, hommes montant à un palmier) illustrent, eux, la place de plus en plus grande prise par le cadre de la transposition des récits, c’est-à-dire par la société des peintres. Les premiers donnent lieu à une série de portraits, souvent caricaturaux, et de scènes de genre d’un humour paillard qui témoignent d’un sens de l’observation de la nature humaine, d’autant plus aigu qu’il s’agit d’étrangers. Le propos de ces peintures n’est plus seulement d’édifier le spectateur mais de le surprendre et de le divertir. Les seconds illustrent le goût des peintres pour un quotidien perçu comme exotique du simple fait de sa représentation. Finalement, ce n’est pas à une sécularisation du propos des récits bouddhiques que nous assistons, mais au contraire à leur appropriation, à leur birmanisation, comme le prouveront dès la fin du 18e siècle, les séries de monuments bouddhiques régionaux
This doctoral thesis studies the appearance, in the pictural mise en scène of early 18th century Buddhist narratives, of ordinary men and women discussing, quarelling, loving, or simply depicted in their everyday life, and who occupy the foreground of the narratives though they are not part of them. Together with characters hauts en couleurs (narghile smokers, alcohol and women lovers) of Indian, Portuguese and half-breed origin, whose proper names appear in the cartouche of the captions of the scenes, and who characterize the pictural production of the Chindwin region, are everyday fellows depicted in their daily life (horsemen, cowherds, hunters of ill-omen birds, children running to see the Bodhisatta, men climbing a palm tree). These fellows illustrate the increasingly large place given to the society by the painters. The characters hauts en couleurs give rise to a series of portraits, often of a caricatural inspiration, and to genre scenes of a bawdy humour that reflect a sense of observation of the human nature, all the more accurate as it depicts foreigners. The purpose of the paintings is not just to edify the audience, but also to surprise and amuse it. The fellows illustrate the tendency of the painters to represent life scenes as exotic. Finally we are not witnessing a secularization of the purpose of the Buddhist narratives but, on the contrary, their appropriation and their Burmanization, as shown by the series of regional Buddhist monuments starting from the late 18th century

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O corpo é o lugar onde as pesquisas artística e acadêmica se articulam para gerar questões problematizadas. Neste trabalho, os horizontes metodológicos tem como base um pensamento geográfico, espacial, que procura cartografar as noções que vão sendo construídas em processo ao longo da pesquisa. Inspirada pelo pensamento de autores como Nietzsche, Foucault, Susan Sontag, Oswald de Andrade, Cássia Lopes e Suely Rolnik, o corpo emerge não somente como objeto, mas como o próprio agente do estudo. A burla – retirada de dentro da moldura do gênero burlesco (visto principalmente em dicionários etimológico e de termos literários, bem como em O Riso Burlesco, de Georges Minois, e na análise do movimento New Burlesque) – aparece como uma estratégia de criação do corpo, que pretende operar a partir de suas marcas (sendo algumas delas o gênero, visto por Judith Butler, bem como o colonialismo e estereotipização, apontadas por Homi K. Bhabha, entre outras), dando visibilidade e potência a características que estão impedidas de se desenvolver dentro dos discursos da tradição racionalista e colonial. Percebe-se, através da descrição e análise de alguns processos criativos (dos trabalhos Los Juegos Provechosos, 2009; Simpatia Full Time, 2008-2010; Burlescas, 2009; Salmon Nela, 2007; e Technomaravilha, 2010), que pontos de bloqueio e aprisionamento dos estereótipos tornam-se evidentes quando o corpo está em performance. Na burla do corpo, rompe-se com as lógicas e práticas normatizadoras, criando possibilidades de reinvenção. O trabalho problematiza, além disso, certos engessamentos de procedimentos e metodologias de criação no campo das artes cênicas (dança e teatro). Tais pontos de fixidez também corroboram para a manutenção de concepções de corpo que, numa prática artística comprometida politicamente, necessitam ser revistas e modificadas. A pergunta de Espinosa, atualizada por Deleuze e Guattari – o que pode o corpo? – é uma questão norteadora. Das práticas artísticas mencionadas (nas quais participei como performer), emerge o corpo que chacoalha – borrando contornos e inaugurando uma erótica própria ao ato performático (Massimo Canevacci). Esse chacoalhar torna-se um dos caminhos possíveis para iniciar a burla do corpo. O corpo que burla é uma resposta criativa à pergunta de como seria possível descolonizar o corpo, feita por André Lepecki, pois ele se torna um caminho para a leitura crítica de dados culturais.
The body is the local where the artistic and the academic researches are articulated to generate problematized issues in this work. Here, the methodological horizons are based on a geographical thinking, in a spatial point of view, that seeks to drawing up cartographically the concepts that are being built throughout the research process. Inspired by the thought of authors such as Nietzsche, Foucault, Susan Sontag, Oswald de Andrade, Cassia Lopes and Suely Rolnik, the body emerges not only as an object but as the subject in this study. The burla – extracted from the frame of the burlesque genre (studied in etymological dictionary, literary terms dictionary, in Georges Minois's article The Burlesque Laughter, as well on the analysis of the New Burlesque movement) – appears like a strategy to the creation of the body which want to operate from its scars (some of which are the gender, seen by Judith Butler, as well as colonialism and stereotyping, highlighted by Homi K. Bhabha, among others), giving visibility to potency and characteristics that are prevented from developing within the discourses of colonial and rationalist tradition. It's possible to note through the description and analysis of some creative processes (the works Los Juegos Provechosos, 2009; Simpatia Full Time, 2008-2010; Burlescas, 2009; Salmon Nela, 2007; and Technomaravilha, 2010), the blockade and entrapment points from the stereotypes that becomes evident when the body is in performance. In the burla of the body, it breaks up with logical and normalizing practices, creating possibilities for reinvention. This research discusses, in addition, a certain fixity of procedures and methodologies in the field of the performing arts (dance and theater). Such fixed points also supports for the maintenance of body conceptions that a politically engaged art practice needs to review and modify. The question of Spinoza, updated by Deleuze and Guattari – what can a body do? – is a north query. From the mentioned artistic practices (in which I participated as a performer) emerges the shaking body – blurring boundaries and inaugurating a peculiar erotica born in the performative act (Massimo Canevacci). This shake becomes one of the possible ways to start the burla of the body. The body that does the burla is one artistic answer to André Lepecki's issue how to revert the colonization of the body, because it could be a way to read and to criticize cultural data.

Ethno botanical surveys have revealed that Brunei Darussalam has a rich source of tropical medicinal plants. As 80% of the country's land is covered by tropical rainforest, Brunei Darussalam may have some medicinal plants with unique characteristics of secondary metabolites. Some plants such as Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don and Eurycoma longifolia Jack have long been used by the local communities to treat various disease conditions. However, no research has been done in terms of the constituents or biological activities of the Brunei Darussalam medicinal plants. We have investigated the genetic variability diversity and pharmacological actions of Andrographis paniculata (Burm.f.) Nees [1] also known as Daun Pahit or Chuan Xin Lian or King of Bitters by an interdisciplinary approach, involving DNA-based RAPD and RFLP analyses, HPLC-based chemical analysis as well as cell culture and tissue-based bioassays. We have demonstrated that Andrographis paniculata extr acts exhibited a range of actions including antioxidant, anti-allergies, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects. Some of the pharmacological actions of Andrographis paniculata are co-related with their active constituents Andrographolide (A) and Dehydroandrographolide (D). The study is valued not only in obtaining experimental evidence for supporting traditional use of native medicinal plants but also in establishing a platform for studying other medicinal plants in Brunei Darussalam.

An estimated twelve million people worldwide are stateless, or living without the legal bond of citizenship or nationality with any state, and consequently face barriers to employment, property ownership, education, health care, customary legal rights, and national and international protection. More than one-quarter of the world's stateless people live in Thailand. This feminist ethnography explores the impact of statelessness on the everyday lives of Burmese women political exiles living in Thailand through the paradigm of human security and its six indicators: food, economic, personal, political, health, and community security. The research reveals that exclusion from national and international legal protections creates pervasive and profound political and personal insecurity due to violence and harassment from state and non-state actors. Strong networks, however, between exiled activists and their organizations provide community security, through which stateless women may access various levels of food, economic, and health security. Using the human security paradigm as a metric, this research identifies acute barriers to Burmese stateless women exiles' experiences and expectations of well-being, therefore illustrating the potential of human security as a measurement by which conflict resolution scholars and practitioners may describe and evaluate their work in the context of positive peace.

The dissertation analyses the reliefs and paintings on thirty-one different tombs in Western Anatolia erected between 600 and 450 BC, in order to illuminate the ways in which non-Greek elites were identified on their memorials. The tombs from three areas are treated: Phrygia, Hellespontine Phrygia and Lydia, where the primary language groups were Phrygian, Mysian and Lydian. There is little literary evidence for these regions, and what there is tends to focus on political developments. Descriptions of people and society are few, and tend to represent them from an outside perspective, grouping them according to cultural characteristics which differentiate them from Greeks. It is clear, however, that the regions were important, prosperous places, controlled by illustrious grandees and land marked with a relatively high proportion of monumental tombs. Of these monumental tombs, there is a relatively high number decorated with striking and articulate images. There is much to be gained from examining the images on these tombs, as ‘indigenous’ sources for how elite Western Anatolians described themselves. Previous approaches to the tombs and their images have tended to look at them individually or in smaller groups, and to concentrate on the transmission and reception of Persian and Greek culture in the Achaemenid provinces. This dissertation contributes a broader comparative study of the decorated tombs, focussing on the kinds of statuses the images represent and the cultural forms these took. By comparing the various methods of self-representation, it clarifies patterns of identities in Western Anatolia and their relationship to historical circumstances. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. An introduction outlines the scope and sample, the historical background, previous studies of the monuments, the definition of ‘identity’ and the methods of analysis adopted here. Three case study chapters present the regions and the decorated monuments within them. A concluding chapter synthesises three aspects: social identities (roles and spheres of life represented); geographic and chronological patterns; and cultural affiliations and orientations. The dissertation concludes that a tension between Persian identities and local traditions is evident in some of the tomb images, which relates to the political upheavals in Western Anatolia and the Aegean at the time of the Persian Wars.

In March 1942, the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment, 36th Division, surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army on Java in the Dutch East Indies. Shortly after the surrender, the men of the 2nd Battalion were joined as prisoners-of-war by the sailors and Marines who survived the sinking of the heavy cruiser USS Houston. From March 1942 until the end of World War II, these men lived in various Japanese prison camps throughout the Dutch East Indies, Southeast Asia, and in the Japanese home islands. Forced to labor for their captors for the duration of the conflict, they performed extremely difficult tasks, including working in industrial plants and mining coal in Japan, and most notably, constructing the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. During their three-and-one-half years of captivity, these prisoners experienced brutality at the hands of the Japanese. Enduring prolonged malnutrition and extreme overwork, they suffered from numerous tropical and dietary diseases while receiving almost no medical care. Each day, these men lived in fear of being beaten and tortured, and for months at a time they witnessed the agonizing deaths of their friends and countrymen. In spite of the conditions they faced, most survived to return to the United States at war's end. This study examines the experiences of these former prisoners from 1940 to 1945 and attempts to explain how they survived.