A new media art exhibition on the Buddhist Maritime Silk Road has launched at the Academia Sinica Open Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. Years in the making, the project is curated by University of the West's Emeritus Professor Dr. Lewis Lancaster, along with Venerable Ru Chang, Professor Jeffrey Shaw, and Sarah Kenderdine.
This immersive and interactive exhibition explores "the spread of Buddhism by maritime routes from the Ganges Basin in India to East and Inner Asia, in the early centuries of the Common Era." The narrative of Buddhism's maritime transmission is told three in "chapters" and includes the intersectionality of religion, history, politics, economics, art, architecture, and archeology. The work also features a selection of Buddhist sculptures and artifacts from the collection of Fo Guang Shan.
University of the West is proud to play a part in the exhibit, as it is partly a product of Dr. Lancaster’s research and the research of UWest students who participated in his Maritime Buddhism course.
The exhibition is available digitally at https://openmuseum.tw/muse/exhibition/621c25ec9c073eda1529c613644a1812.