Down to the Bone: Duality, Mortality and Impermanence in Tibetan Buddhist Arts and Ritual

The Society for Asian Art presents a talk with Tamara Hill on the wrathful, ironic, and amusing depictions of skeletons, bones, and skulls in Tibetan Tantric Buddhist arts and rituals.

This illustrated lecture is about the wrathful, ironic, and amusing depictions of skeletons, bones, and skulls in Tibetan Tantric Buddhist arts and rituals. Images and artifacts that confront us with our own mortality and duality will be featured based on the presenter’s travels and experiences in the Himalayas and will be illustrated with her original photographs. The focus will be on the transformative and positive impact of these fearsome images of death and the skeletal body – visual metaphors that point to inner, spiritual regeneration and illumined awareness.

Tamara Hill has a MA from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU and has done graduate studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and UCLA. In addition to her experiences as a photographer, writer and scholar, Tamara has lectured and taught art history for many years with a specialization in Himalayan Buddhist arts and symbolism