Museums and the Tibetan Community: A Reciprocal Relationship
To many Westerners, Tibetan art and culture is an impenetrable riddle. Traditional Buddhist images are encoded according to subtle spiritual principles that make them difficult to decipher. But what about Tibetans themselves? A common assumption is that Tibetans, or, for that matter, members of any native community, are knowledgeable about their own cultural imagery. This study set out to test that assumption through the collection and analysis of social tags on artworks from a cross-section of Tibetan Buddhist iconography. It examined not just knowledge, but also attitudes of young Tibetans about their cultural heritage.
The context for this research is the growing need for cooperation between the Tibetan community and Western cultural institutions, many of which hold in their collections the last surviving treasures of a nation that has suffered 50 years of Chinese occupation. Currently, an estimated 140,000 Tibetans live in exile, and their numbers are steadily growing. The Tibetan exile populations in Switzerland and New York are the world’s largest after India. They number 3,000 (Pescia, 2004) and 4,000 (Alter & Norbu, n.d.) respectively. For better or worse, life in exile has become a permanent condition, and Tibetan communities in the West face the challenges of maintaining their cultural traditions and transmitting them to the next generation.
Tibetans increasingly perceive museums as ‘custodians’ of their endangered heritage. Unlikely to demand repatriation out of a sense of gratitude and respect, many view museums as sites of cultural transmission and even pilgrimage destinations. As ethnographer Leigh Miller Sangster (2007) relates, “[Tibetan] artists have joked […] about going for Buddhist pilgrimage to the West and doing prostrations in museums and galleries!” The complex intermingling of Western and Tibetan agendas evokes James Clifford’s “Museums as Contact Zones” (1997) in which he uses the term “reciprocity” to describe the new type of relationship between museums and native communities.
Seeing Tibetan Art Through Social Tags
Seeing Tibetan Art was inspired by the steve project’s research agenda (Cataloguing by Crowd Working Group & Trant, 2005) presented by Susan Chun at a seminar at the University of Lugano in 2005. One suggested research topic was how social tags might provide a window into the perceptions of viewers from different cultures. Chun speculated that taggers could potentially describe images from their own cultures more successfully than others: “Are Italian taggers ‘better’ at tagging Italian art?”
Plans to test this hypothesis with the Tibetan community in Switzerland grew out of a visitor study at the Ethnographic Museum in Zurich (see Mannion, 2007a, chap. 8; Mannion, 2007b). At an exhibition about the history of the Dalai Lama (http://www.diedalailamas.ch), interviews with 36 Western and Tibetan visitors revealed decidedly different orientations between the two cultural groups. While Westerners used the exhibition as a means to expand intellectual knowledge or relive travel experiences, Tibetan families saw it as a venue for cultural transmission. In one case, a Tibetan mother accompanied her adult son through the galleries, augmenting the audio commentary with her own remarks. The family encountered numerous obstacles, among them the sophisticated intellectual content of the interpretive materials, which made the son feel awkward: “[Even for] me as a Tibetan it was not easy to understand...It’s like everything [is] new for me as well.”
Figs 1a & 1b: Tibetan participant and tagging platform installed on laptop
Taking these remarks as a starting point, Seeing Tibetan Art was designed to investigate the relationship of young Tibetans to representations of their own heritage. The large Tibetan community in Switzerland provided an ideal testing ground. Once formulated as a proposal, the study was submitted to the Rubin Foundation (http://www.sdrubin.org) which funded it in December 2006. There were two core questions. What do social tags reveal about how Tibetan art is perceived? How can this knowledge help improve physical and virtual exhibitions for Tibetan and Western audiences?
Mixed Methods Research Design
Because the tagging project grew out of an earlier ethnographic study, it seemed natural to incorporate qualitative methods into the predominately quantitative research design. Social scientist Julia Brannen (2005) and others argue persuasively for mixed methods research, pointing out that qualitative and quantitative techniques can be combined effectively to strengthen overall conclusions. The small scale of this project meant that qualitative methods could only be employed during a single phase of the research. Proctored tagging sessions conducted with Swiss Tibetan participants included ethnographic observation and interviews. Additional fieldwork at cultural events allowed me to become familiar with the cultural scene I was studying. The subsequent phases of the research followed a more traditional quantitative model, with tags and demographic data being collected remotely on-line.
The final research design consisted of four phases (Table 1). Phase 1 involved installation and customization of the open source steve.museum software. The user interface was restyled to reflect the look of the project. It was also translated into German. One version of this system is accessible on-line (http://www.seeingtibetanart.org). A second version was installed on the laptop computer used to administer tagging sessions in the field. Phase 2 included collection of tags in Switzerland using a mixed methods approach. Phase 3 involved the remote collection of tags from Tibetans and Westerners in New York using an essentially quantitative approach; as of this writing, Phase 3 is still underway.
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Switzerland | New York | ||
|
Mixed methods | Quantitative methods |
|
|
|
Table 1: Four-phase research design for Seeing Tibetan Art
Insightful suggestions from Tibetan informants helped to shape and improve the research design. Kelsang, a young man deeply connected with community concerns through his membership in a local youth association, pointed out that traditional works hold little interest for many Tibetans of his generation: “It’s really contemporary art that’s most interesting for us.” His remarks led to the inclusion of a single contemporary work in the study, and yielded surprising results. Conversations with participants at proctored tagging sessions also revealed differences between first and second generation Swiss Tibetans and critical language issues that were otherwise invisible to the tagging system. These examples illustrate the value of an ethnographic orientation in native community and diaspora research. Even small amounts of qualitative data are extremely useful in clarifying research priorities, ensuring that they reflect community concerns as well as those of the museum (see Spradley, 1979; Sherman & Strang, 2004).
Selected Artworks
Six images were tagged by study participants. The five traditional works come from the Rubin Museum of Art’s (http://www.rmanyc.org) collection. The single contemporary work is by Tenzing Rigdol, a Tibetan artist working in the United States. Table 2 includes the six artworks accompanied by a short description. The study’s primary focus was on the traditional works, which were chosen on the basis of the following criteria:
- Representativeness: the works represent a cross-section of Tibetan Buddhist iconography.
- Recognizability: the subjects depicted have deep resonance within Tibetan Buddhist culture.
- Availability: high quality digital reproductions of the works were already available on-line at Himalayan Art Resources (http://www.himalayanart.org).
- Good documentation:. curators had written about the works, facilitating comparison between museum documentation and user-contributed tags.
- Legibility: the digital reproductions were highly legible at the size displayed in the tagging interface. Legibility is an especially important issue for Tibetan art since many thangka paintings are extremely detailed.
| Avalokitesvara (1700-1799) Central Tibet, Gelug Lineage  http://www.himalayanart.org /image.cfm?icode=40 Avalokitesvara (Chenrezig in Tibetan), the buddha of compassion, is the patron deity of Tibet. The Dalai Lama is considered his embodiment. Shown here with 1000 arms that represent his capacity to relieve suffering. |
Padmasambhava (1800-1899) Tibet, Nyingma Lineage  http://www.himalayanart.org/ image.cfm?icode=188 Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava (Pema Jungne in Tibetan) is the main founder of Buddhism in Tibet. He is a key figure in Tibetan history and is shown here in his main form. |
|
| Wheel of Life (1700-1799) Eastern Tibet, Uncertain Lineage  http://www.himalayanart.org/image.cfm?icode=591 A model of Buddhist cosmology based on the Abhidharma literature. Yama, the central figure, holds the circular wheel of existence in his jaws. Scenes within the circle depict the six realms of existence. |
Shri Devi - Magzor Gyalmo (1800-1899) Tibet, Buddhist Lineage, Wood  http://www.himalayanart.org /image.cfm?icode=65251 Wrathful female protector of the Dalai Lama and his monastic college. This work was selected in order to better understand how non-experts perceive wrathful imagery (e.g., skulls, weapons). |
|
| Chakrasamvara (1700-1799) Eastern Tibet, Karma Kagyu Lineage  http://www.himalayanart.org/ image.cfm?icode=69Images of two figures in sexual union are common in Tibetan Buddhist
art. These yab-yum or
father-mother works depict the inseparability of wisdom and compassion. |
Brief History of Tibet (2003) Tenzing Rigdol, Acrylic on canvas  Figure 2f This contemporary oil painting by Tenzing Rigdol, a Tibetan working in Colorado, USA, was suggested by the Rubin Museum. The reason for including it was to highlight potentially diverse viewing patterns between traditional and contemporary works. |
|
Table 2: The six Tibetan artworks included in the study (Figures 2a-2f)
The Tagging Platform
The platform used for data collection is a customized version of the steve.museum tagging system. Its functionality remained essentially unchanged apart from the fact that Seeing Tibetan Art users were expected to access the system once only. After visiting the project homepage (http://www.seeingtibetanart.org), participants select their country and language option and arrive at the log in screen. They then complete a detailed demographic questionnaire (hosted by Survey Monkey, but seamlessly integrated into the interface) and proceed to tag the six images. Images are displayed in random order without titles or descriptions (Fig. 3b).
Fig 3a-3c: Project homepage, Main tagging screen (German version), Flickr community page
Users are required to submit only one tag per image although instructions on the tagging screen encourage them to enter at least five tags. Artworks can be skipped, but eventually return in random rotation if they remain untagged. Following the session, users receive a thank-you email containing a link to a private Flickr set (Fig. 3c) with a photographic diary of the project and pictures of participants. The simple Flickr page fostered a feeling of connection among those involved. It also gave them a sense of transparency, because it enabled people to connect with me on a personal level.
Data Collection In Native Communities
In finding Tibetan participants, I faced the challenge of navigating a complex social network of people with little familiarity with Western-style studies. Conventional recruitment techniques such as printed flyers, e-mails, and newsgroup postings were useless. It was necessary to rely on informants who recruited participants from among their family, friends, and contacts. Different informants were connected with different segments of the population. Thupten, a community official and longtime Swiss resident, recruited exclusively second generation Swiss Tibetans, while Tashi, a teenager from Lucerne, recruited other first generation immigrants. Finding genuinely helpful informants can be difficult. Community organizations are an excellent resource, but members of these groups may recruit others with similar interests. This is a particularly sensitive issue in the Tibetan community where many organizations have political rather than more neutral social or cultural agendas.
Demographic Profile Of Participants
Since a primary aim of this study was to assess the knowledge of the younger generation of exiled Tibetans, all participants are between 15-45 years old. In any study of Tibetan Buddhist artworks, the religious affiliation of participants is significant. A major challenge in interpreting Tibetan art, as well as the art of many non-Western cultures, is how to translate subtle spiritual concepts into terms Western visitors can understand. All the Tibetan participants consider themselves Buddhists. The majority of Swiss self-identified as Christians, with a roughly equal number of Catholics and Protestants. An important demographic for the Tibetans was generation. Diaspora populations are notoriously diverse, and the Tibetan community is no exception. Table 3 describes the demographic characteristics of the Tibetan and Swiss German participants.
| Tibetans (n = 25) |
Swiss (n = 23) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demographic category | n | % | n | % |
Generation |
||||
| First generation | 9 | 36 | Not applicable | |
| Second generation | 13 | 52 | ||
| Third generation | 3 | 12 | ||
Gender |
||||
| Men | 9 | 40 | 12 | 52 |
| Women | 13 | 60 | 11 | 48 |
Age |
||||
| 18 and younger | 5 | 24 | - | - |
| 19-24 | 10 | 40 | 5 | 22 |
| 25-30 | 6 | 24 | 11 | 48 |
| Over 30 | 4 | 16 | 7 | 30 |
Religion |
||||
| Buddhist | 25 | 100 | - | - |
| Christian – Catholic | - | - | 8 | 35 |
| Christian – Protestant | - | - | 9 | 39 |
| No religious affiliation | - | - | 6 | 26 |
Table 3: Demographic overview of participants in Switzerland
Preliminary Findings
Although data collection and analysis are ongoing, it is possible to draw some tentative conclusions based on the data collected so far from Swiss participants. The following analysis should be viewed as provisional as it may be altered or influenced by future results. Please note that the coding protocol used to generate the Word Type calculation is not included; however, I can provide this to anyone interested in further detail.
Tagging And Viewing Patterns
One striking result is the difference in the volume of tags collected from Tibetans and Swiss Germans. Of the 1203 valid tags collected on the six images, 485 came from 25 Tibetans and the remaining 718 from 23 Swiss Germans. The average tags per tagger per image was 19.4 for Tibetans compared with 31.2 for the Swiss. Tibetans submitted fewer tags across the board. Figure 4 shows the average number of tags collected across all six images.
Fig 4: Average valid tags per tagger per image
There are a number of possible explanations for the disparity. The most obvious is that many Tibetans tagged in chaotic environments at cultural events whereas all Swiss Germans tagged on-line. Even Tibetans who did tag on-line, however, averaged only 24.5 tags per image. There are other factors at work which become evident when qualitative data from interviews and observations are brought into the picture. Many young Tibetans experience discomfort when viewing traditional works of art. In the words of one woman disturbed at the prospect of having to tag an image she did not recognize: “Looking at these images makes us feel bad, because we don’t know anything.” Another tagger also expressed uneasiness, explaining that “…for Tibetans it is considered sinful to make a mistake.” Although the diaspora has few resources where young people can learn about their visual heritage, there is still considerable pressure from the older generation not to let their cultural traditions die. One way this “burden of preservation” (see Mannion, 2007a, p.p. 112-119) manifests is in the reluctance of Tibetans to fully engage in tagging or other activities because of the feelings of embarrassment it may arouse.
As the second tagger’s comment indicates, Tibetans are also strongly enculturated not to make mistakes when it comes to traditional imagery. They are therefore unlikely to guess if they do not know for certain. Western taggers looking at the same image do not have such concerns. The high tag volume for Brief History of Tibet, the only contemporary image, suggests that Tibetans may find it easier to tag an image free of cultural associations, because there is no pressure to answer correctly.
Apart from these emotional issues, the mechanics of tagging proved challenging for many Tibetans. Many people perceived it as a test, despite efforts to minimize such reactions by introducing the activity in neutral and user-friendly language. Although most young Tibetans use the Internet regularly for work or school (Piltz, 2006), they do not tag on Flickr or YouTube. This caused initial confusion when people were confronted with the tagging interface. Some of their tags reflect their difficulties: “what is this?” “no idea,” unbekannt (unknown), “schwer erkennbar welche gott” (hard to tell which deity it is). I further observed that it took people a while (10-15 minutes) to get the “hang” of tagging and to begin to enjoy it. Participants spent the first part of their session struggling to think of terms, staring at the screen, browsing images in the set. After successfully tagging one or two images, they seemed to warm up.
Tagger Agreement
Tagger agreement offers further insight into the two groups’ distinctive viewing patterns. Figure 5 shows average agreement for the three most common tags across the six images. Tibetans showed considerable consistency for the traditional images. This confirms that the iconic representations have acquired meaning for them through repeated exposure at home, school, or temple. Among Swiss participants for whom none of the deities or symbols are familiar, taggers responded with personal, idiosyncratic interpretations rather than culturally learned ones. The significance of these values is reinforced by the fact that Swiss participants submitted 32% more tags overall than the Tibetans, thereby increasing their odds of agreement.
Fig 5: Comparing inter-tagger consistency across images
The high levels of agreement among Tibetans for Wheel of Life (38.7%), Avalokitesvara (30.7%), and Padmasambhava (25.3%) are not surprising, since these images have particularly strong connections with their nation’s culture and history. Images of the Wheel of Life are widely circulated as teaching aids for basic Buddhist concepts; Avalokitesvara, the patron deity of Tibet, is connected with the Dalai Lama; and Padmasambhava is the historic figure who brought Buddhism to Tibet. There is less agreement about Chakrasamvara, an image used in tantric (and usually private) meditation practice.
Some intriguing differences in perception emerge in the
combined agreement. Two images, Wheel of Life and Avalokitesvara, achieved a
degree of cultural cross-over, evoking similar terms from both Tibetans and
Westerners. Taggers disagreed in their perceptions of the esoteric deity
Chakrasamvara. Tibetans tagged it frequently with “buddha”, accurately
identifying its wisdom aspect; however, Swiss Germans found it böse or “angry-looking” and associated it with death.
This exemplifies how tags can help uncover cultural misunderstandings: rather
than anger, Chakrasamvara actually embodies the union of bliss and emptiness.
Such mistakes made by taggers generate what Trant (2006, p. 16; see
also Trant 2006b) refers to as
“teachable moments.” Another instructive example is the masculine deity of
compassion Avalokitesvara, that both Tibetan and Western taggers consistently
identified as female. One quarter (25%) of taggers assigned feminine terms to
the image, including Göttin (female deity), Mutter (mother),
and Frau (woman). A logical question
when interpreting this artwork with viewers is: “Why does this male deity look
feminine in this image?”
Cultural Pervasiveness Of Traditional Images
Tibetans may agree on some of the terms used to describe traditional images, but do they actually recognize them? Only 1 of 25 Tibetan taggers correctly identified all five. (None recognized the contemporary, abstract work, which did not contain a central figure.) On the surface, this may seem surprising, since Westerners often assume Tibetans are conversant with their own cultural imagery. The average rate of correct identification across the five traditional artworks was 16.8%. This can largely be attributed to a single image, Wheel of Life, which was recognized by 44% of the Tibetan participants. Five (22%) Swiss Germans also correctly identified the Wheel of Life, confirming the widespread pervasiveness of this symbolic depiction. As expected, Swiss participants did not recognize any other traditional images.
Correct identification is one of several factors which reflect an image’s cultural pervasiveness. Table 4 combines six different factors into a single rating or index to measure this concept. These include non-unique tags, correct identification, the number of correct proper names assigned by taggers in different languages, the number of nearly correct identifications, overall tagger agreement for the most common tags, and semantic diversity of tags assigned. Tag (or semantic) diversity shows the range and character of terms submitted. To calculate this value, tags were first broken up into individual words and then sorted into seven Word Type categories according to a strict coding protocol. The seven categories include: proper name, Buddhist concept, Buddhist noun, verb or action, feeling or vernacular concept, vernacular noun, and non-tag. Standard deviation was applied to calculate variance across these categories.
| Avalo- kitesvara |
Chakra- samvara |
Padma- sambhava |
Wheel of Life |
Shri Devi |
Brief History |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tibetans |
||||||
Based on total taggers (n = 25)
|
||||||
| Correct identifications | 3 | 0 | 6 | 11 | 1 | 0 |
| Nearly correct identifications | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| Tagger agreement (Top 3 tags) |
30.66% | 20% | 25.33% | 38.66% | 25.33% | 26.66% |
Based on total valid tags |
78 | 72 | 83 | 82 | 77 | 93 |
| Non-unique tags | 15.38% | 13.88% | 18.07% | 19.51% | 9.09% | 16.13% |
| Correct proper names | 5 | 0 | 7 | 11 | 2 | 0 |
Based on Word Type categories |
||||||
| Tag diversity | 88.85% | 84.55% | 89.32% | 87.23% | 86.76% | 82.02% |
Swiss Germans |
||||||
Based on total taggers (n = 23) |
||||||
| Correct identifications | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
| Nearly correct identifications | 0 | 0 | 0h | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tagger agreement (Top 3 tags) |
18.84% | 20.3% | 18.84% | 30.43% | 27.54% | 28.99% |
Based on total valid tags |
109 | 115 | 119 | 118 | 117 | 140 |
| Non-unique tags | 11.93% | 10.43% | 14.29% | 16.1% | 17.95% | 21.43% |
| Correct proper names | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
Based on Word Type categories
|
||||||
| Tag diversity | 87.31% | 86.09% | 85.61% | 81.66% | 80.35% | 80.01% |
Table 4: Raw values used in cultural pervasiveness rating
Figure 6 shows the cultural pervasiveness ratings (on a scale of 0-100) across the six images. It reinforces an earlier analysis (see Mannion 2007b, chap. 9) of correct identification and Word Type that uncovered three distinct levels of recognition among Tibetans for traditional imagery: iconic or symbolic, familiar, and unfamiliar. Iconic or symbolic images are the most culturally pervasive, and, with a score of 37.1, Wheel of Life falls into this category. Avalokitesvara and Padmasambhava, both important cultural figures, are familiar; and Chakrasamvara and Shri Devi are unfamiliar. Brief History is included here in part to demonstrate the validity of this measurement. As expected, its rating is low among the Tibetan group. The similarity in ratings for the protectress Shri Devi and Brief History can be explained by two factors: first, the challenging nature of Shri Devi’s wrathful appearance, which is commonly misinterpreted, even by Tibetans; and second, Brief History’s abstract composition, which incorporated many traditional Tibetan elements; such as the mandala and Kalachakra symbol, recognized by Tibetan viewers.
Fig 6: Comparing cultural pervasiveness across images
Augmented by interview data, these findings become even more meaningful. When Tibetans were asked which images were easiest to tag and why, their responses were contradictory. One person said artworks she knew were easy to tag because she already has something to say about them. Another found unfamiliar works easier to tag because they seemed “freer” The rating indicates that symbolic and familiar works do elicit less diverse responses from Tibetan taggers. And although some people may find them easier to tag because their meanings are culturally pre-defined, the way in which viewers react to them is likely to be less personal and even “less free.” Both the high tag volume and semantic diversity of the tags assigned to Brief History seem to support this hypothesis, although further research is needed. At the very least, the Swiss responses demonstrate that totally unfamiliar works can evoke a large number of rich and varied terms from taggers. Revisiting this study’s central question, we can speculate that while Tibetans may be better at tagging Tibetan art correctly, they are unlikely to tag exhaustively or personally.
Implications and Conclusions
Although this study is still underway and future analysis will likely generate additional insights, the preliminary findings with this small but consistent data set have important implications for museums. First, it is clear that tags have a function beyond simply expanding the vocabulary with which museums describe their on-line collections. Tags are clues to the ways viewers and visitors perceive images. They are useful tools in quantitative studies, and, when combined with qualitative feedback and observations of taggers, they can also provide insight into the ways people feel and think about the experience of viewing art. These findings can be applied in a several ways to improve museum displays of Tibetan art:
- Very few young Tibetans can correctly identify traditional images, and for many, looking at such works evokes feelings of embarrassment. Interpretive materials should not assume prior knowledge. Instead, coverage should start at the beginning, introducing names and concepts in an extremely friendly and non-threatening way.
- Tibetans are likely to engage with symbolic images like Wheel of Life in predictable and culturally-prescribed ways. Interpretive materials which gently force them out of established paths through questioning or other novel approaches could excite their curiosity to go beyond what they already know.
- Special care should be taken in the presentation of esoteric and wrathful deities, since both Western and Tibetan audiences are likely to misunderstand them. Interpretive materials might take common misapprehensions as starting points and the encourage viewers to examine their first impressions as a means to deeper understanding.
- Tibetans’ responses to the contemporary image Brief History of Tibet were both diverse and highly personal. It is possible that exhibitions which combine contemporary and traditional artworks may be successful at attracting younger Tibetans, helping them view traditional imagery through a different (and less culturally defined) lens.
As societies worldwide become increasingly multicultural, many museums confront the challenges of addressing and serving the needs of diverse visitor groups. In the Tibetan situation, and those of other endangered cultures, the importance of supporting community agendas takes on special urgency. It is hoped that studies employing social tagging can provide valuable insights for the design of virtual and physical exhibitions to engage and enlighten visitors of all kinds.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the Rubin Foundation and the Rubin Museum of Art for funding this study. Helen Abbott adeptly guided and oversaw the work from the museum side. I am deeply indebted to Susan Chun, a founder of the steve project, who introduced me to social tagging applications. She has unstintingly supported this project from its inception. Additional thanks go to Anna Lisa Tota, University of Rome III, Giampietro Gobo, University of Milan, and Giuseppe Arbia, University of Lugano, for methodological advice. Thanks also to Phyllis and Ed Mannion, Peter Samis, and Chip Blank for invaluable feedback and moral support. Most importantly, I thank the informants and participants of this study, especially Tashi Chodron (New York), Thupten Nyamstur, Tashi Lhazom Shinjatsang, Tenzin Küsang Nelung, Kelsang Gope, Kyimo Ghung, Dekyi Taradoepa, Gabriele Hofer, Martina Balbi, Marisa Zadotti, Jessica Powers, Dr. Martin Brauen, Asha Kaufman, Renate Koller, Jen Wang, Jörg Eugster, Markus Aplstäg, John and Margrit Eely, A. Zeynep Pamuk, and Michael Jenkins.
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