Material Cultures
Art and Anthropology
The course included a visit to the British Museum to view the exclusive Bornean collection they have in storage, and a visit to the British Library’s Southeast Asian department to view Hindu-Buddhist manuscripts from mainland Southeast Asia and illuminated Qurans from maritime Southeast Asia.
To further enhance my knowledge of Southeast Asia’s artistic and cultural landscape, I attended a specialist course at SOAS on “Art, Ritual and Religion in Southeast Asia”. The course married my two academic fields, anthropology and art, to appreciate the region’s material culture borne out of Hindu-Buddhist traditions, Islamic influence and Indigenous/native folklore.
As an anthropology graduate, I had four years of the field’s theoretical and methodological approaches under my belt when I shifted my focus for my MA. The MA Curating Cultures programme focused more on art history and museology. My studies were suddenly object-centric, which I initially treated as a learning curve. I adapted easier than I thought, applying emic perspectives when viewing and handling objects. It gave me a sense of appreciation for the people who made the objects when I looked at them through their cultural contexts.
Being Malaysian, I always had a deep appreciation for my country’s rich cultural heritage and diverse tapestry of artistic traditions. At SOAS, I learned more about the arts and culture of other Southeast Asian nations and had the honour to sit in classrooms with peers from across the region. It was truly special, being able to connect the learning material to our lived experiences.
