Seeing Identities:
Visitors, Viewers,
Communities and Tibetan Art
University of Lugano
Master’s thesis
Shelley Ann Mannion
TEC-CH program
September 28, 2007
Addition and Subtraction
Benchung, 2006
http://www.rossirossi.com/artists/2.html

Museum display of Tibetan art
Two empirical research projects
Western and Tibetan responses to exhibition
Social tagging by Tibetans in Switzerland
Main findings: “seeing identities”
1. Museum visitors are culturally diverse
2. Museum visit articulates identity
3. Identity determines what is seen
4. Viewing is a complex process for Tibetans
5. Tibetan images evoke diverse responses

Why is this work important?
Growing audience for Tibetan art
140,000 Tibetans living outside Tibet
Increased Western interest in Tibetan Buddhism
Role of Western museums
Inheritors of cultural treasures
Can support cultural transmission
Museums as Contact Zones (Clifford 1997)

Research questions
1. Perceptions of Tibetan art
2. Visitor reception in ethnographic museums
3. Museums and the Tibetan community

Research design: mixed methods
Phase 1: Museum exhibition Phase 2: Social tagging
Social tagging experiment with 6 works of
Visitor study 14 Dalai Lamas exhibition
Tibetan art
36 Western and Tibetan visitors 23 Tibetans and Swiss Tibetans
Tag collection, demographic survey,
Ethnographic interviews, observation
ethnographic fieldwork
Statistical analysis, interpretation with two
Transcription and narrative analysis
original models

14 Dalai Lamas in Zurich
The exhibition
August 2005 – April 2006
17,000 visitors
Institution of Dalai Lamas
Theoretical models
User/Visitor Model (Tota)
Encoding and decoding (Hall 1980)
Perfomativity (Butler 1990)
Museum as cultural ecology (Bell 2002)

How were visitors conceived?
Similar to the curator
Intellectually oriented
Sufficient background
Educational/visual agenda
Quiet, solitary visitors

Media: printed catalogue and
audio guide
Printed catalogue Audio guide

Photo alcove

Visitor response:
Itineraries of identity
Itinerary Way identity How artworks
expressed conceived
1) General interest Lifestyle connection Sites of shared interest
2) Emotionally connected Imagined citizenship Reminders of travel
through travel experience
3) Buddhist experts Articulation of Buddhist Sacred objects
faith
4) Intellectual experts Proud of being experts Means to increase
knowledge
5) Tibetans Attempt to preserve Sites of cultural
cultural knowledge transmission

Obstacles to visitors’ itineraries
Attitudes
Media
Social & physical

Tibetan attitudes
‘Westerners know ‘Western display is
more than us’ inauthentic’

Interpretive media
“Vehicle” integrated into perception
Audio guide & catalogue
Created artificial art/culture split (Samis 2007)
Did not allow personalization (Martinez 1992)
Photo alcove
Photographs “irrepressible” (Edwards 2001)
Open to personalization

Seeing Tibetan art
through social tags
Methodology
Corroborate and complement (Brannen 2005)
Metropolitan Museum of Art (Trant 2006)
Unique focus on perception
Population
Tibetans in Switzerland
Young (19-40 years old)
1st, 2nd, 3rd generation
Tashi Lhazom
from Kham, East Tibet

Tagging venues

Selected artworks

Customized steve platform
Tagging interface
www.seeingtibetanart.org

Collected tags
440 valid tags (387 unique)
German, English, Tibetan
Tag volume influenced by:
Venue/Session length
Generation

Curators versus taggers
Confirm Met Museum tests
Translation competence of 2nd generation
Chenresig
Dalai Lama
female deity/goddess
compassion
multi-tasking

Tag volume by image
Total valid tags by image
Brief History 86
Padmasambhava 77
Avalokitesvara 71
Shri Devi 70
Wheel of Life 70
Chakrasamvara 66
Brief History of Tibet
(Tenzing Rigdol, 2003)

Correct identification
Correct identification by image
Wheel of Life 14
Padmasambhava 6
Avalokitesvara 5
Shri Devi 3
Chakrasamvara 2
3 levels of recognition
Symbolic Wheel of Life
(Eastern Tibet, 1700 – 1799)
Familiar
Unknown

Word type classification
Word type Example
Proper name Avalokitesvara (Tibetan or Sanskrit term)
Buddhist concept compassion, enlightenment
Semantic analysis
Buddhist noun deity, buddha
Counts multiple words
Verb or action watches over, protects
Feeling or concept equality, fertility, heaven, horror
Adjective scary, pretty, colorful
Noun hand, horse, man, flower

Word types by image
Word types by image
Padmasambhava
Brief History Proper name
Buddhist concept
Avalokitesvara Buddhist noun
Verb or action
Chakrasamvara Feeling or concept
Adjective
Shri Devi Noun
Wheel of Life
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Word type conclusions
Confirms 3 levels of recognition
Mitigated by aesthetic qualities
(Padmasambhava)
Culturally-defined language for
symbolic and familiar works
Padmasambhava
Tibet, 1800 - 1899

Engagement classification
Type Definition Example
Subjective Personal or emotional response beautiful colors
silky material
Buddha watches over us
fertility
connection/union
subjugation
framework
Data derived
Objective Culturally or intellectually Father-Mother Uses groups of tags
defined response yab-yum
Wang (Empowerment) No value judgement
Kalachakra
Meditation
Tantra
Non specific No connection or extremely good
weak connection with artwork old
valuable
authentic
real
Non tag General comment Never seen image like this
I don’t know
What is this?

Engagement by image
Engagement tag types by image
Brief History
Shri Devi
Subjective
Padmasambhava
Objective
Nonspecific
Chakrasamvara
Nontag
Avalokitesvara
Wheel of Life
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Factors influencing engagement
Cultural interest in art and architecture
Level of education
Number of museums visited
Average tags per user by cultural interest
35.0
30.0 29.6
Number of tags
25.0 25.6
20.0 19.0 Valid tags
17.8
15.0 14.2 Engaged tags
13.2
10.0 10.5 10.8
5.0
0.0
Music and History and Religion Art and
dance exile (Buddhism) architecture
Folk dancers
Bülach, July 2007

Engagement conclusions
Taggers have distinctive orientations
Different kinds of engagement
Symbolic = objective engagement (stock phrases)
Unknown/contemporary = subjective engagement
(personalization)
Personal identity influences engagement

Primary insights of this research
1. Complexities on the Tibetan side of the
Contact Zone
Challenge maintaining culture in exile
Self-deprecating attitudes
Translation competence of 2nd generation
How different images engage viewers
Tsewang
Flawil, Switzerland

Primary insights of this research
2. New conception of ethnographic
museum visitors
Culturally diverse
Perform identity
Highly active, but constrained by ecology
Visit linked to travel experiences

Primary insights of this research
3. Insights for effective interpretation
Enlarging spaces through open texts
Balanced use of media

Primary insights of this research
4. Success of mixed methods research
Qualitative and quantitative data
Social tagging and perception

Thank you to…
All the participants
Dekyi, Kyimo, Tenzin Küsang
Thupten, Tashi Lhazom
My advisors
Prof. Anna Lisa Tota
Helen Abbott
Susan Chun
Sponsors
Rubin Foundation
Rubin Museum of Art