Food for the spirit

he most ambitious exhibition in the 40-year history of the Fowler Museum of Cultural History is its current offering, The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia. The thought-provoking and eye-opening show is also proving to be a delicious coup for this museum at the University of California at Los Angeles. As a detailed and buoyant Los Angeles Times review stated: The Fowler has demonstrated that the popular grain [rice] has provided a lot more than bodily nourishment for the diverse peoples who have been eating it every day for the last 10,000 years, and that this hardy crop has had a remarkably civilizing influence on a large swath of humanity. In a similar vein, the magazine Humanities asserted that the Fowler Museum has shown that, over the centuries, rice has been more than a diet staple: it is a symbol of spirituality. The periodical is published bimonthly by a major funder of the exhibition, the National Endowment for the Humanities.

THE ART OF RICE

Sacred grain

As they enter the hall, visitors witness a key moment in Javanese mythology, depicted in traditional Indonesian shadow puppetry, when the beloved rice goddess Dewi Sri creates the sacred grain. In nine thematically arranged galleries, exhibits range from Japanese Zen paintings and rare stone-glazed sake bottles from the 17th to 19th centuries, to intricate Indonesian textiles and modern works created for popular festivals marking the agricultural cycle. The final display, named The Future of Rice, features a photograph, by Ariel Javellana, of IRRIs seed-storage facility, preserv-

GENE HETTEL

ing for future generations the genetic heritage of rice. The guiding force and indefatigable planner of the exhibition is Roy Hamilton, curator of the Fowlers Asian and Pacific Collections. A textiles specialist by training, Dr. Hamilton can also lay claim to being a rice expert after 7 years researching, selecting and acquiring items for The Art of Rice a wealth of ceramics, sculptures, rice goddess statues, puppets, woodblock prints, vessels, plain and extraordinary farm tools, woodcarvings, baskets, and paraphernalia for performing rice rituals (see the inside back cover). This took a tremendous amount of work and time, particularly negotiating loans and signing agreements with other museums and private parties, Dr. Hamilton recalled. I could give a 30-minute lecture on each of the more than 200 THE EXHIBITION BOOK shows on its cover a detail of a 1930s painting on cloth of rice farming in Bali; Dr. Hamilton (below) in his office. items in the show. Guiding a tour of the galleries, he pointed out an early 20th century February to April. Japanese bridal robe. The sake imps or Accompanying the exhibition is a book shojo decorating this material provide a that, weighing in at 552 pages and more sign of good luck for the bride, he said be- than 2 kg, ranks as the Fowlers largest-ever fore turning to granary figures of the Ifugao publishing venture. Also called The Art of people of the northern Philippines. These Rice, the book, which is available through bulul, consisting of a male and female pair, the University of Washington Press, preinclude an infant, which makes explicit serves the structure of the exhibition with the connection between rice and human sections corresponding to galleries. fertility. Both the exhibition and book have cast a very broad net, so I think there is something to interest almost everybody, Mix of materials Dr. Hamilton is most excited about the Dr. Hamilton said. For the book, I worked exhibitions wide-ranging mix of materials with 27 experts from a dozen countries and from many Asian countries. I had never encouraged them to write about what they before dealt with contemporary paintings, found inspirational. Among the essays, both scholarly and he said, and the ones from Korea and the personal, is one regarding the disappearing Philippines are simply fantastic. From its gala opening on 4 October, rice rituals of the Ifugao. The contributors the exhibition will continue at the Fowler are Aurora Ammayao and her husband, until April. It will then move to Napa, Cali- Gene Hettel, head of IRRIs Communicafornia, where it will run from September to tion and Publications Services. An adapted November, before shifting again in 2005 excerpt from this chapter follows on the to Honolulu, Hawaii, for a final run from next page.
Rice Today January 2004
COURTESY UCLA FOWLER MUSEUM OF CULTURAL HISTORY