Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings

This exhibition highlights Jain devotional textiles (chhoda) from the Ronald and Maxine Linde Collection, promised gifts to the Fowler Museum. Eye-catching works of velvet and sateen cloth lavishly embroidered with gold and silver gilt thread, chhoda shine with visual references to Jain mythology, influential spiritual teachers, sacred sites, ritual traditions, and other crucial religious themes. In addition to objects from the Linde Collection which were acquired in the western Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, the installation will include photographs documenting the use of chhoda in personal and public shrines by Jain adherents in Southern California.

Visualizing Devotion is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA and curated by the Jain Center of Southern California; Lynna Dhanani, assistant professor, Department of Religious Studies, UC Davis; Syona Puliady, Fowler curatorial assistant; and Patrick A. Polk, Fowler senior curator of Latin American and Caribbean popular arts. The exhibition has been developed as part of the Lilly Endowment-funded Engaging Lived Religion initiative.