Beyond Good & Evil

It’s amazing what one finds when cleaning out the closet–even when that closet happens to be a photo-hosting site.

Since I’m at nearly 7000 images and can’t seem to find anything when I look for it, it’s time to do some tagging.  A bit tedious, but a reasonable way to spend a slow Sunday morning, especially given my selective memory.  The best part about going back in time?  Discoveries like this picture I’d taken of a friend’s photograph from a trip to Indonesia (so meta!).

Whereas traditional wayang kulit (shadow theatre) is based on the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabarata, this is wayang wahyu, a form that allowed the Jesuits to spread their word through a means more familiar to their Indonesian audiences.  The piece to the right at first looks as though it is the usual kayonan (tree of life) or gunungan (holy mountain) , but look closely and you’ll discover some non-native imagery.
This is definitely not something you’ll see in our upcoming Bali exhibition, but a fascinating aspect of acculturation.  I know a few readers have traveled in Asia–what are your favorite moments of cultural disparity?