Public Programs @ The Institute
Series: The Institutum Series on Southeast Asia
Art and Everyday Life in Southeast Asia: A Case of Two Urban Centers
Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 6:00pm
Geok Yian Goh, Nanyang Technological University Singapore
“Art is not a specialized activity divorced from everyday life” (Miksic and Goh, 2017: 15). One key focus of studying premodern, early modern, or modern Southeast Asia is the impetus to extricate from the archaeological record information relating to the everyday life of people. Two main themes, which are the mainstays of our interest continuing from the publication of Ancient Southeast Asia, are: urbanization and the role of art/artifact in Southeast Asian societies. This talk discusses what could be gleaned about everyday life in two urban centers that overlapped in time: Bagan, Myanmar, and Singapore. What was urban living like in Bagan and Singapore? Studying these two sites provides perspectives into the role of the enigmatic figure of the artist in Southeast Asia and their art: art for survival, art associated with performance such as dance and music, art reflecting religious aesthetic and asceticism, and as political tools.
Geok Yian Goh is Associate Professor of History and Associate Chair (Faculty) at the School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University Singapore. She specializes in archaeology and the history of Southeast Asian urbanization and ceramics, working closely with the late John N. Miksic, with whom she co-authored Ancient Southeast Asia. Geok has published works on Buddhist kingship in Myanmar, hell in Burmese murals, and Burmese urbanization. She is continuing the post-excavation analyses and publication of site reports and databases on Singapore archaeological sites. Her other interests include translating Burmese historical texts and contemporary literature.
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