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Email: u.mohan.11@ucl.ac.uk
Website: www.urmilamohan.com
Year of start: 2011
Subject: Material Culture
Research Topic/ Provisional Dissertation Title
Clothing as Material of Religious Subjectivity in ISKCON India
Supervisor(s)
Susanne Kuechler
Chris Pinney
Introduction
The study of “subjectivity-cum-materiality” through the making and use of religious clothing in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), India helps us explore how religious modalities and persons are generated, transformed and localised. While adherence to Vedic scriptural norms is central to ISKCON there is also the non-discursive use of corporeal, material aesthetics or ‘corpothetics’ within the emotive devotional tradition of bhakti. An emphasis on ‘making’ and ‘doing’ as religious subjectivation can be seen in the clothing of deities, the centrality of darsan, the programs that disseminate worship practices and the concern with work as karma or soteriological action. Unlike clothing in the West that re-surfaces the individual’s body to present a desired identity, garments in ISKCON transform a person’s ‘nature’ within a cosmology of transferable properties and actions. I argue that the agency of deity and devotee clothing mediates ontological categories of interior and exterior to shape the religious subject and act as an entry point into sociality in ISKCON.
Research interests
- Art, Craft and Design
- Religion
- Embodiment
- Consciousness
Academic Background/Education
- MFA Studio Art, Penn State University (PSU), State College, Pennsylvania, 2009.
- BA (Hons) Anthropology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, 2000.
- 5 yr Diploma, Communication Design, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, 1998.
Honours and Awards
- 2012-13, India Travel Award, Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
- 2011, UCL Anthropology Departmental Bursary.
- 2010, Rotary International District 7510 Ambassadorial Scholarship 2011-12.
- 2009, Solo Exhibition 2010, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ.
- 2008, Penn State Graduate Research Show, Penn State University.
- 2007 – 08, Graduate Scholarship, Penn State University.
Publications
- “Designing Diaspora: The Culture of Indian Diasporic Clothing”, The Trellis, National Institute of Design, India, 2011.
- “Moving Home”, Exhibition Catalog, Hunterdon Art Museum, 2010.
- “The Culture of Ornament and Decoration”, ArtsWord, Penn State University, School of Visual Arts, Fall 2009.
- “Slonim Revisited”, Ceramics, Art & Perception, June 2008.
- “Sculptural Objects Functional Art, NY 2007”, Terracotta Magazine, October 2007.
- “Aliens in Their Own Land”, Video, 20 min., Ahmedabad: Gurjarvani Productions (Xavier Center for Culture and Communication), 1998.
- “Yatra (A Journey)”, Video, 10 min., Udaipur: West Zone Cultural Centre, Government of India, 1995.
Funding
- 2011-12, UCL Anthropology Departmental Bursary.
- 2011-12, Rotary International District 7510 Ambassadorial Scholarship.
- 2012, UCL Graduate Research Projects Fund.
