Online Lecture: Huup Taem - Lao Buddhist murals in northeast Thailand

31. März 2023, von AAI Webmaster

Foto: unsplash

We kindly invite you to this online lecture on Friday, March 31, 2023, at 14h CEST.

Research on Buddhist temple murals in Thailand has focused mainly on those commissioned by the rich and famous—royalty, nobility, or wealthy entrepreneurs—in historic centers of power, such as Ayutthaya, Thonburi, Bangkok and to a lesser extent the northern Lan Na kingdom centered in Chiang Mai. This talk will introduce the unique early 20th century murals of ethnic Lao people in Upper Isan, the northern part of the Northeast. These murals, ฮูปแต้ม, (huup taem, as they are known) rather than being inferior copies of those in the central region, are inspired by Lao Buddhist legends and practices. Executed with a verve and vision unique to their creators, they reflect both the local landscape Wat Ban Yang Borabue district, Mahasarakham province and the local cosmological imagination. Their most distinctive characteristic is their primary location on the exterior of ordination halls, known as sim, in Isan. Some sim buildings also have murals on the interior as well. Another unique feature is their free-flowing composition around the building, resembling the cloth scrolls known as Pha Phra Wet, which are carried in procession during Vessantara Jataka festivals known as Bun Phra Wet.

We are pleased to welcome Bonnie Pacala Brereton for this talk. She has earned an MA in Asian art history in 1975, and a PhD in Buddhist Studies in 1992 at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Thai Tellings of Phra Malai: Texts and Rituals Concerning a Popular Buddhist Saint (1995) and co-author (with Somroay Yenchuay) of Buddhist Murals of Northeast Thailand: Reflections of the Isan Heartland (2010). She has also written numerous articles on both subjects. She currently divides her time between Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen, where she is affiliated with KKU’s Center for Research on Plurality in the Mekong Region (CERP). 

We thank the Hamburg Society for Thai Studies for the cooperation.