This project aims to document the knowledge of the craftsmen and ritual specialists who traditionally employed lost-wax-casting techniques to create large metal “Paramount” Buddhas in Thailand. These traditional forms of production (including lost-wax techniques, metal-casting and related rites and beliefs) are in decline, and as the age of those craftsmen has increased, this knowledge is in danger of disappearing.

Our goals are:

  1. To digitize the archive of film, photographs and field-notes created in 1984 by Tristram Riley-Smith when conducting Post-Doctoral fieldwork in Thailand in 1984; this included imagery from the casting of a Buddha at Wat Chang in Tha Mai;
  2. To index this archive in both English and Thai before taking it out to Thailand for the “real-time” programme of community engagement in the fieldwork stage (see Goals 3 and 4 below).
  3. To show the archive to a) Ajan Daeng (the last of the traditional craftsmen at work in Ban-chang-lo, the traditional centre for foundries outside Bangkok) and b) the monks and lay-people of Tha Mai; in doing so, we will make a video and sound record of their responses;
  4. We also plan to enrich this archive through by filming the craftsman, ritual specialists and worshippers talking about -and demonstrating – their interactions with Buddha images like this.
  5. We will be alert to opportunities to conduct follow-up activities in Chiang Mai, where Riley-Smith photographed foundry-workers in Chang Lo Rd in 1984.
  6. We will index the new footage that is collected in fieldwork, together with Thai and English transcription and translation of comments of interviewees recorded in the field.
  7. The complete archive will be delivered to the British Museum. We will seek out a Thai location for a copy to be held, and at the end of the project look for opportunities for the Co-A to create and disseminate a booklet or similar product to the communities involved.

PI: Dr. Tristram Riley-Smith

Collaborator: Dr. Pitchaya Soomjinda

Location of Research: Thailand

Host Institution: Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia

Top Banner Image: Foundrymen melting metal objects donated by villagers to be incorporated into new cast Buddha statue, Wat Chang, Tha Mai, 1984. Photo credit: Tristram Riley-Smith.

 

 

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