INFORMATION Vital Matters: Engaging Lived Religion in the 21st Century Museum By Amy Landau, Ph.D. and Francesca Albrezzi, Ph.D.
Amy Landau is the director of education and interpretation and a co-director of Engaging Lived Religion in the 21st-Century Museum at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford. Amy lectures and publishes on the arts of early modern Iran and her curatorial work has been generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Francesca Albrezzi is a Digital Research Consultant at UCLA’s Office of Advanced Research Computing and Director of Vital Matters Digital Development. She works on the Research Technology Group's GIS, Visualization, XR & Modeling team, assisting faculty with their digital research needs, from ideation to execution and publication. She is currently affiliated with the College Art Association’s educational committee as Co-Chair, of Art History Teaching Resources, and the Digital Art History Journal, where she serves as an Editor-in-Chief and Director of the virtual gallery.
Introduction Engaging Lived Religion is a three-year project (2021–2023) generously funded by Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative that expands the Fowler Museum’s engagement with the religious and spiritual traditions in Los Angeles and around the world. Co-Directed by the museum’s Director of Education and Interpretation Amy Landau and Patrick A Polk, Senior Curator of Caribbean and Latin American popular Arts, the project furthers the Fowler’s decades-long, multidisciplinary exploration of the artistic dimensions of religion and spirituality, as well as the lived experiences of belief. Prioritizing community participation, this undertaking has three spheres of activities: exhibitions, public programs, and digital learning. This article focuses specifically on the work being done in partnership with the Jain Center of Southern California and scholars dedicated to Jain artistic, cultural, and religious traditions.
thread, and replete with visual references to Jain mythology, influential spiritual teachers, sacred sites, ritual traditions, and other religious themes. The chhod patas on display are from the Ronald and Maxine Linde Collection and are a promised gift to UCLA and the Fowler Museum. The Fowler is also fortunate to have the opportunity to present a chhod pata from the home of Dr. Jayesh Shah of the Jain Center of Southern California.
Exhibition The first of the Fowler’s Engaging Lived Religion exhibitions is Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings The exhibition opened on November 20, 2022, and will stay open until March 26, 2023. (https://fowler.ucla.edu/exhibitions/visualizingdevotion/) In this exhibition, visitors have the opportunity to learn about Jain shrine hangings (chhod patas) from the western Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, embroidered with gold and silver-gilt 36
[ Photos by John Glover taken during an event related to the exhibition Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings on December 3, 2022 ]