As an interdisciplinary course, MA Art History and Conservation of Buddhist Heritage invites its students to engage with Buddhist material culture, to understand diverse perspectives on its meaning, and to examine how different stakeholders come together to preserve Buddhist heritage.

In the Autumn semester, we studied Conservation in a Buddhist Context – one of two foundational modules. This featured practical sessions led by Dr Lan Pu. Over four weeks, we created replicas of Buddhist murals in the workroom. Each student selected a section from a Buddhist site and experimented with its historic materials and techniques, guided by scientific and conservation reports. This process gave us a deeper understanding of the paintings’ characteristics, many of which are not visible to the naked eye.

My experience in these sessions allowed me to explore the stratigraphy and materials of wall painting through my replica. I prepared an earthen plaster by mixing clay with hemp and aggregates such as stone dust and paving sand to reduce shrinkage, then applied it to a tile. Once set, I added a protective sealant—an alum solution with adhesive—to prevent pigment penetration. My replica was based on the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, where animal glue is commonly used. I prepared rabbit-skin glue by soaking it in water and heating it until it melted. During pigment mixing, I observed that as the temperature dropped, the glue quickly gelled and required reheating to liquefy.

Moreover, artists of Buddhist wall paintings employed a range of planning techniques at different sites. These planning techniques refer to the preparatory methods used to organise composition and proportion before painting, and they ensure accuracy. A key stage is the under-drawing; the preliminary design applied directly onto the plaster surface to guide the final image and iconography. Under-drawings could have been produced using incision lines, compasses, pouncing (transferring a design through a pricked pattern), or freehand sketching. Therefore, we each adopted different approaches to under-drawing in relation to our chosen site.

This replica-making process mirrors how conservators test materials to guide which preservation techniques to use, to minimise damage and deterioration to an artwork. It encourages us to learn through mistakes and reflection; issues such as cracking and paint flaking in my replica may have resulted from uneven plaster application or incorrect adhesive ratios. Overall, hands-on experimentation proved more effective than relying solely on reports or lectures.

The second module we took in the Autumn semester was Buddhist Art Worlds. The most intriguing part of this module was the off-campus visits led by Dr Sujatha Meegama. Meeting curators and conservators across institutions was enlightening. In October, we visited the Ancient India: Living Traditions exhibition at the British Museum, which explores connections between Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism through shared roots in local traditions, including nature spirits and similarities in visual representation. A key takeaway was the need to respect cultural values in religious exhibitions by consulting religious communities when making curatorial and conservation decisions. For instance, as Jainism prohibits harm to living beings, animal glue is avoided in conservation, and synthetic materials like polyester are used instead of cotton.

Another inspiring session was our visit to the Sainsbury Centre at Norwich, where objects are treated as living representations. The conservator highlighted ethical challenges in pest management for Buddhist objects. For instance, woodworm damages the structure of a sculpture, yet pest removal may conflict with Buddhist teachings. This requires careful consideration of appropriate treatment. The conservator also discussed the ethics of cleaning. Dirt on significant Buddhist objects may be left and not cleaned off, as it reflects a history of worship –�� such as exposure to incense on shrines – even though smoke can cause damage. These cases show the need to balance different perspectives when conserving Buddhist heritage.

Throughout the semester, I learned to see Buddhist heritage beyond iconography and historical significance – as something lived and continually reinterpreted. I realised working with Buddhist objects is a collaborative process, shaped by curators, conservators and the communities who value them. Most importantly, an object’s meaning does not reside within it alone. Its significance emerges through the people who engage with it – through use, belief and care. Buddhist heritage is therefore not just about the past, but about ongoing relationships and how these objects continue to live within communities today.

Attending TEFAF (The European Fine Art Foundation) Maastricht 2026 in the Netherlands for the first time, I was struck by how the fair – which showcases fine art, antiques, and design currently available on the market – balances museum-like curation with commercial intent. Everything is vetted for authenticity and quality, dealers are eager to educate, and the atmosphere encourages sustained looking across 7,000 years of art history. But a talk by Drew Watson, Head of Art Services at Bank of America, made clear that something fundamental has shifted in how collectors engage with their acquisitions.

Watson opened his talk by describing how his work helps clients manage their art-related wealth. As a member of TEFAF’s Global Advisory Board, his team brings 20 to 25 top collectors to Maastricht each year. It’s an ecosystem that barely existed two decades ago, one where the commercial and curatorial worlds, once firmly separated, have become increasingly intertwined.

What struck me quite quickly was the scale of the art finance sector: a $2.2 trillion market in privately held art and collectibles, with art lending alone reaching between $34 and $40 billion. Financial language now frames collecting practices seamlessly, and in ways that would have seemed inconceivable a generation ago.

Watson emphasized that collectors still buy primarily out of aesthetic value and passion, but that rationale appears less dominant among younger buyers. 98% of Millennial and Gen Z collectors now view art as part of their wealth planning, compared with 56% of collectors overall. Art is being folded into tax strategy, charitable giving, and estate planning, suggesting that for the next generation, collecting is increasingly shaped not just by taste, but by financial logic. With an estimated $1 trillion in art and collectible wealth expected to pass to the next generation by 2034, these shifting motivations are likely to have significant consequences for how collections are built, managed, and inherited.

Art lending has become a major part of this shift. Watson outlined how banks offer renewable credit lines against art collections, with loan-to-value ratios around 50%. The appeal is straightforward: unlock capital without selling. For clients with significant holdings, the main draw is avoiding capital gains tax, which can reach over 40% with federal and state levies combined. Art doesn’t reprice daily like equities, which means it mitigates margin call risk.

But the model depends on a kind of stability that isn’t necessarily guaranteed. Art remains illiquid, expensive to transact, and difficult to price consistently. It’s lightly regulated and vulnerable to issues of title, authenticity, and condition, even at vetted fairs like TEFAF. Watson acknowledged these risks while positioning art lending as an underleveraged opportunity within wealthy portfolios.

The infrastructure being built around this is extensive. Watson’s team provides a comprehensive suite of services: art lending, buy-side and sell-side advisory, collection management, art planning, philanthropic solutions, market insights, and curated access to major art world events. Banks are hiring specialists with gallery and auction house backgrounds and competing not on price but on service differentiation.

Learning about the sell-side advisory was particularly revealing. Watson detailed how his team navigates auction house negotiations, securing enhanced hammer agreements (100% of hammer price, no seller fees), guarantees, and private sales while managing strategy, marketing, and fiduciary guidance. Watson noted that major collectors at TEFAF often buy works outside their typical focus, drawn to unexpected discoveries because dealers take time to educate and the vetting process creates trust. It’s this dynamic that gives the fair its museum-like quality.

What became clear is that the art market landscape is evolving faster than many anticipated. Watson’s presentation of the competitive banking landscape showed institutions at vastly different stages of building art capabilities. Some focus on sponsorship and branding, others on client accommodation, while a few have developed comprehensive strategic frameworks. The infrastructure around art as wealth is professionalizing rapidly, and those entering the field now need to understand not just connoisseurship or market dynamics, but how these intersect with financial planning, estate law, tax strategy, and wealth transfer.

This shift brings both opportunities and challenges. The roles Watson described didn’t exist a generation ago. His team hires specialists who can produce market intelligence, manage complex client relationships, and navigate banking regulations. Careers in this space are rarely linear, and the real question is not whether to engage with these developments, but where to position oneself within a landscape that is being redrawn.

Leaving TEFAF Maastricht, I found myself thinking about how quickly these worlds have become intertwined. The fair still celebrates discovery, education, and the chance encounters Watson described. But it also operates within a financial ecosystem that is rapidly professionalizing. For those of us working at the intersection of art and business, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore how embedded these structures already are. Whether that enhances or obscures the value of art itself remains an open question.

It has become increasingly common to think of institutions, art fairs, and commerce when we hear the word ‘art’. As I was struggling in 2022 to turn my career towards ‘something more creative’, while hustling to earn money for my MA and working in fintech, my world was shaken by Russia’s brutal war unleashed on Ukraine. As I watched the horror unfold in real time, with women, children, men, everyone, even pets, slaughtered wherever Russian forces entered; I kept asking myself what a person in a position of relative privilege could do to assist Ukraine in this inhumane and unequal battle. How could I help it survive?

Maria Mileeva’s Beyond Utopia course was one of very few courses in the country that offered an opportunity to investigate the post communist space and its culture by removing the oppressor from the conversation. It felt fresh and compelling, and it was fascinating to learn about the Georgian avant-garde, the Lithuanian school of photography, and feminist artists from Kazakhstan. It was refreshing to position Russia as a state constantly lagging behind, constructing itself by erasing the cultures of the peoples and lands it annexed, unable ever to acknowledge them.

Beyond Utopia truly went beyond the usual, often exoticised view of the USSR and its artistic practices. By exposing students to pages of art history carefully hidden by the oppressive politics of the USSR and later Russia, it dismantled the simplistic view of an evil West and a benevolent communist Russia, instead positioning both powers as equally capable of oppression, racism, and colonialism. Because the course is taught through the lens of art history, imperialist arguments are communicated effectively through visual material, often employing socialist realist imagery and cinema. Most importantly, the course excavates art that has been deliberately mislabeled as Russian or Soviet and repositions it in a new anti-colonial light.

The structure of the course follows the chronological evolution of the USSR, tracing its artistic origins back to the Russian Empire while also investigating contemporary art in the Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, and Central Asia. These artistic influences are juxtaposed with socialist art and architecture from around the world, from Angola to China.

As part of the course, in October 2023 our class travelled to the Asia Now in Paris. Art Now is an art fair co-curated by Slavs and Tartars. It is one of the key voices promoting art from Central Asia and post-communist states, and its diaspora. It was remarkable to see contemporary Mongolian art presented abroad for the first time, as well as to discover galleries and artists from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan rivaling traditional Western galleries and their offerings. For many of us studying this MA, it was our first real-life encounter with art from Central Asia.

We were guided by Maria through Paris, with one of the most memorable moments being the first-ever exhibition of contemporary Mongolian art abroad. Lkham Gallery, based in Ulaanbaatar, presented White Milk Paints the Blue Sky, curated by Christianna Bonin. It was unlike anything I had seen before. Works by Baatarzorig Batjargal, Bekhbaatar Enkhtur, Chayodu, Nomin Bold, Nomin Zezegmaa, Nyam-Ochir Oyunpurev, Odonchimeg Davaadorj, and Zula Tuvshinbat captivated our entire class, with many of us returning to the exhibition throughout the year. Enkhtur’s works, often made entirely from beeswax, pushed me to think about relationships between East and East, and how, for example, the Baltics or Ukraine might weave dialogues of mutual empathy with Mongolia and West Asia through shared craft traditions such as beeswax sculpture and a deep appreciation of bees as sacred animals tirelessly working to protect their hive — their people and their culture.

After seeing the Asia Now exhibition, it became clear that this MA module was very different from any other. When we began writing our essays, we were constantly encouraged by Maria and by one another to dig deeper and challenge both our own understanding and the popular imagination surrounding regions formerly associated with the USSR and the Iron Curtain.

Our virtual exhibitions followed suit. Some were staged within socialist realist architectural monuments in East Africa; others occupied the Royal Academy; some (including mine) were staged in Newham, East London, home to the UK’s largest Eastern European population. Ukraine dominated our research, and we sincerely hoped that we would be the last class to engage with Ukrainian art through the lens of war. What we genuinely worked towards was removing the oppressor from the way we look at and understand art from the region. Let us talk about art in Estonia without ever mentioning Russia. Let us do the same when researching Tajikistan or Moldova — that was our mission.

What I am trying to say is that this course brought together many intelligent and ambitious people who joined not because they owned a few Soviet propaganda posters and thought they were aesthetically interesting, but because we were genuinely concerned about the gaps in art history. Even as Master’s students, we worked hard to address those gaps, to search for truth, and to challenge established narratives.

Art from the region has always carried messages and often hidden desires to be understood. Whether in Anastasia Sosunova’s investigation of Russian-Lithuanian identity or Almagul Menlibayeva’s journey through Kazakhstan in search of those responsible for the destruction of the Aral Sea, this module truly opens your mind. You will leave a different person with a fuller head, but most importantly, a fuller heart.

Dr Jessica Barker is a specialist in medieval��sculpture. Her research ranges across northern Europe and the��Iberian Peninsula, addressing questions��of materiality��and the body.

Dr Jessica Barker and exhibition co-curator Dr Ed Krčma said, “We are excited to bring together such extraordinary objects from the Middle Ages and works from some of the most important artists working today. We hope that this strange collision between two very different worlds will open up new perspectives on how we live now, and fresh ideas about how we might craft more balanced and meaningful lives in the future.”

The exhibition runs 16 May��– 4 October 2026��at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich.��It is accompanied by a co-authored book,��,��published by��Lund Humphries.

The 91���� Institute’s MA Art History and Conservation of Buddhist Heritage annually sends its students to Asia for a two-week study trip, offering the opportunity to encounter objects in situ. This year, our destination was Japan. In March, we travelled as a group through Nara and Kyoto, with additional free time taking me to Tokyo, Kōyasan, and Osaka.

We began in Nara with a visit to Tōdai-ji, a UNESCO World Heritage site housing the monumental Daibutsu (Great Buddha). Seeing this colossal bronze figure in person, rather than in reproduction, highlighted the scale, materiality, and devotional power of early Japanese Buddhist sculpture. The temple complex itself was interesting as it served as a tourist destination rather than devotional, with lots of foreign visitors taking selfies in front of the Buddha. This greatly contrasted with some of our later visits.

Our time in Nara also included the infamous deer park, where we were nibbled and bowed to by the free-roaming animals, as well as visiting local Shinto shrines. The shrines in Japan ranged from small cupboards on the pavement to huge temple complexes, and even shinto bells or prayers within Buddhist temples, and they often house very specific and interesting deities! One shrine in particular piqued my interest, as it was dedicated to those working in ice-related industries, such as ice cream or refrigeration, who offer blocks of ice to the enshrined deities. This coexistence of religious traditions in Japan was evident throughout the country with Shinto practices tending toward the needs of the living, and Buddhist traditions focusing on death and rebirth, often operating side by side.

A particularly moving experience for us took place at Hase-dera, where we participated in an ancestry memorial ceremony. The day we attended was one of two per year when visitors are offered the opportunity to physically touch the feet of the huge 30ft, wooden Kannon statue, and it was just our small group there. This atmosphere created a rare and intimate embodied engagement for us with the sculpture, which, in the West, are almost always kept at a distance or behind glass in a museum context. To make physical contact with it, in prayer, was incredibly moving.

While in Kyoto, myself and a peer undertook a pilgrimage hike at Fushimi Inari. We visited in the evening, expecting a small temple with some photo opportunities, but were greeted by thousands of vermilion torii gates spanning up the mountain, and a Shinto priest, who chanted with us and blessed us under a sacred waterfall. This was an incredible and deeply spiritual experience which set us up for our journey to Kōyasan for the weekend.

Mount Kōya is regarded in Japan as a sacred, living landscape. We stayed at Fumon-in, where we ate, slept, and prayed alongside the monks, while also exploring the surrounding village of more than one hundred other temples. Among these was Okunoin, where the founder of Shingon Buddhism, Kōbō Daishi, is believed to remain in eternal meditation. The atmosphere here felt markedly different from the cities. Rather than busy with tourists, the site was quiet except from pilgrims, and the ways of engaging with the statues reflected this ongoing devotional presence. No images were allowed to be taken of the sculptures, as they are consecrated and believed to hold the deities’ spirits.

Kōyasan also housed a remarkable museum, displaying both replicas and original works within an immersive soundscape, offering a striking contrast to the more conventional presentation of permanent collections in London. After introducing ourselves as students at the 91���� Institute, the staff even invited our opinions on their curatorial approach and spoke with us about their conservation practices within the galleries.

Once we were back in Kyoto, we visited sites such as Ryōzen Kannon, a modern yet deeply evocative monument dedicated to war victims with a combination of styles from Christian church windows to Tibetan prayer wheels, before concluding our group itinerary with a quiet visit to Seiryō-ji. This lesser-known temple, with its serene atmosphere, offered a reflective end to the study trip. A shared farewell lunch provided an opportunity to consolidate our experiences as a group.

Following Japan, our cohort dispersed in different directions: I returned to London, while others continued on to destinations including Vietnam and Korea. The trip as a whole deepened our academic understanding of Buddhist art and conservation, but also emphasised the importance of context, ritual, and lived experience in shaping the meaning of these works beyond being material artifacts within a museum.

Further information

Born in Iran, Professor Sussan Babaie attended the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Fine Arts until the revolution of 1979, when she moved to the USA to study for a Master’s degree in Italian Renaissance and American Arts. She then completed a PhD at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, focussing on the arts of Islam. Sussan has taught at the 91���� Institute since 2013, where she is now Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam, teaching on the MA History of Art Special Option Empires of Art: Early Modern Asia, 1500-1900.

You can read Sussan’s contributions on the topic below: