Carlos Museum: "Share Your Shrine"
Carlos Museum at Emory University invites you to "Share Your Shrine"
(this would include not just Buddhist, but personal Shrines/Altars/Prayer-Rooms of any religious persuasion).
The Share Your Shrine project is inspired by the exhibition, Doorway to an Enlightened World: The Tibetan Shrine from the Alice S. Kandell Collection. The exhibition re-creates a domestic shrine, an example of a grand shrine room that might exist in a private home in times past and present. Humble families, on the other hand, kept small altars in the corners of their living rooms, and nomads devised transportable shrines to set up in their tents.
Personal shrines are found in many religions and spiritual beliefs and serve many functions, the most significant having a two-fold purpose: to actively engage with the spiritual realm; and attempt to reinforce the enlightened state symbolized by the shrine.
Personal shrines--small or large, simple or ornate--are found in diverse religions, cultures, and spiritual beliefs and serve many functions.
The experience of a shrine is an individual one. Through the Share Your Shrine project we hope to highlight the personal significance of your shrine.
Share Your Shrine is a wonderful opportunity to explore similarities and differences across this diversity. We invite you to submit an image of your shrine along with a brief statement on its personal significance.
An online booklet will be published this Summer (deadline end of July).
To participate:
1. Snap a picture of your shrine and give it a title or caption – it can be a word or a short sentence.
2.Send your picture and caption to priyanka.sinha@emory.edu
You can also use Instagram to post your image with a comment tagging @CarlosMuseum. Be sure to add #ShareYourShrine in any comments or descriptions.
3. To see your shrine along with other submissions in July, visit http://carlos.emory.edu/share-your-shrine and browse through the Share Your Shrine Booklet.
Here's an example.
One of our community members submitted this image along with a caption.
“I start my day with a commitment to doing something good and helpful in front of this shrine and I end the day with a dedication if I did something good. This shrine gives me eminence of joy and peace to start my day.”
~Geshe Yeshe
#ShareYourShrine
The new exhibit at the Carlos Museum at Emory University is "Doorway to an Enlightened World: The Tibetan Shrine from the Alice S. Kandell Collection." The exhibit consists of a fully constructed Tibetan Buddhist shrine similar to those that would be found in the homes of wealthy Tibetans. Collector Alice S. Kandell donated much of her collection of Tibetan art to the Smithsonian with the stipulation that it be shown together as a shrine. Objects in the shrine include Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, tanka paintings, ritual objects, furniture and mandalas. Visitors to the shrine can experience the impact of concentrated spiritual imagery. The shrine invites mediation and contemplation. VISIT FREE ON THURSDAYS IN JUNE AND JULY: http://carlos.emory.edu/sites/default/files/100freedays_sheet1.pdf
Listen to interviews with Emory professor Sara McClintock and
with collector Alice S. Kandell:
http://news.wabe.org/post/emory-s-carlos-museum-displays-shrine-tibet-week
http://www.carlos.emory.edu/