ORGINS
The Origins of Vital Matters
Vital Matters was born from the desire to understand works of spiritual and devotional significance from multiple perspectives and discuss critical issues of our time through the lens of belief.
Museums often interpret material expressions of belief through anonymous, third-person narratives. This approach frequently portrays faith as a relic of the past or as more vibrant within non-Western or Indigenous communities. Such framing can detach the materiality of belief from its active, lived practices, and reduce its perceived relevance in modern and contemporary traditions across cultures. Additionally, it overlooks the vital insights spiritual traditions can offer in addressing critical issues of our time.
Recognizing this gap, Vital Matters emerged as a reproach of how works of profound significance to individuals and communities are understood, interpreted, and shared. The project’s primary objectives are:
Enrich and diversify the interpretive records and archives of museum and library collections, ensuring a more inclusive approach to documentation.
Expand traditional museum practices of interpretation by allowing competing narratives to be offered side by side.
Explore critical contemporary issues—cultural inheritance, public health, ecological justice—through the lens of human belief and material expressions of belief.
Acknowledge the impact of dispossessing works of religious and spiritual significance from their intended environment and purpose, and encourage conversations and debate about how religious materials are to be understood, interpreted, displayed, and cared for or restituted.
Craft dynamic, digital content designed to inspire and educate university classrooms and the general public.
What’s in a Title? Unpacking the significance
The title Vital Matters draws inspiration from Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010), where she explores how nonhuman materialities possess energetic forces and agency, challenging human-centered perspectives. Bennett’s ideas resonate with Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency (1998) and the works of R. Grimes (1992) and C. Paine (2013), all of whom discuss the agency of inanimate objects within social relationships. The term vital in this project’s title highlights the animacy and vitality of material objects, emphasizing their central role in cultural and spiritual practices. It also underscores the indispensable importance of these works to the cultural heritage of individuals and communities.
Furthermore, the project addresses critical contemporary issues—cultural inheritance, public health, and ecological justice—through the lens of human belief and material expressions of faith. By adopting the term vital matters, we aim to contextualize, reanimate, and embed objects within narratives provided by those deeply engaged with their efficacy. This approach seeks to mitigate the ruptures between people, place, purpose, and spirited materials through digital means. We hope this linguistic framing fosters ethically driven discussions about the interpretation, display, and collection of the material culture housed in museums.
The subtitle Art, Devotion, and Practice is deliberately broad, encompassing diverse interpretations of devotional practice. This includes not only religious acts but also activities such as activism, fostering community cohesion, and safeguarding human rights.
The project, initiated and led by Amy Landau, Director of Education and Interpretation at the Fowler Museum, began its initial phase in 2021 with the support of a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. It has since continued with additional support from the Lilly Endowment, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Nissan Foundation. Currently the site contains about 250 videos and annotated 3D models for the 5 objects featured.
Project Team
Project Team: Amy Landau, Bakhtiar Mikhak, Francesca Albrezzi, Jonathan Glover, Robert Checchi, Gene McHugh, Marina Belozerskaya. A special thanks also go to the Fowler’s curatorial and collections team for their invaluable contributions.