‘Passports and Identity Documents in the Hands of Artists’ is a new single-case display in the British Library’s Sir John Ritblat Treasures gallery. It highlights artists, photographers, designers and arts activists from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Iran who, through artists’ books and artist-led publications, zines, photobooks and print ephemera, have reworked the concept, materiality and function of passports and other bureaucratic documents.

(Left to right) Sorry for Not Attending by Jana Traboulsi (2013) (ORB.30/8742); Hususi Pasaport by Gözde İlkin (2009).
© Jana Traboulsi and Gözde İlkin

Jana Traboulsi’s Sorry for Not Attending (2013) first drew my attention to this theme when I visited the Beirut book-art atelier Plan BEY in 2018. Traboulsi, a Lebanese visual artist, graphic designer and educator, was invited to participate in the ‘No Souls for Sale’ festival at the Tate Modern in London in May 2010. Due to a visa system that restricts Lebanese citizens from travelling easily to the UK, she was unable to attend. In response, she produced an artist’s book entitled Sorry for Not Attending that uses the format of the passport as a critical commentary on not being able to attend one’s own exhibition. Reproducing passport pages, real excerpts of visa applications, maps, stamps, drawings and stickers, she highlights four places—Europe, the United States of America, Palestine, the Asteroid B612—where it is difficult or impossible for a Lebanese passport holder to travel.

Examining the design politics of the passport, Mahmoud Keshavarz writes: “[T]he passport is not neutral but a real and powerful device with its own specific history, design, and politics, mediating moments through which socially constructed power relations can be enacted and performed.” He notes that just as passports “mediate experiences of moving, residing, and, consequently, acting in the world” they can also be “remediated” through cultural and artistic works. He writes: “These works, through acknowledging the brutality of the passport as a system of control, deception, and regulation, try to open this banal booklet and redirect it as an object of thinking, imagination, and memory with the hope of reworking the hegemonic narrative prescribed to them.”

(Left to right) Jawāz Safarī lil-Qirāʼah [My Reading Passport] by al-Jana Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (c. 2000s) (ORB.30/9506); Leave to Remain: a Single Syrian Grain, Airbourn by Issam Kourbaj (2023) (ORB.30/9576).
© al-Jana Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts and Issam Kourbaj

Thinking together with Keshavarz and Traboulsi’s Sorry for Not Attending, I began to notice other artists who have creatively embarked on a similar process of remediation, using passports and other bureaucratic documents to explore themes of state control, mobility, displacement, exile, memory and identity. A selection of these works, together with Sorry for Not Attending, are included in ‘Passports and Identity Documents in the Hands of Artists’.

‘Passports and Identity Documents in the Hands of Artists’ display installed in the British Library’s Sir John Ritblat Treasures gallery
© Daniel Lowe

Istanbul-based artist Gözde İlkin’s Hususi Pasaport (2009) reflects on political borders referencing the Turkish "Green Passport." Palestinian photographer and graphic designer Majdi Hadid, in his contribution for the Subjective Atlas of Palestine (2007), enumerates the many documents required to travel under Israeli occupation. Jawāz Safarī lil-Qirāʼah [My Reading Passport] (c. 2000s), produced by al-Jana Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts, mimics a visa system as a tool to encourage reading and literacy for Palestinian children living as refugees in Lebanon. Cambridge-based artist Issam Kourbaj's Leave to Remain: a Single Syrian Grain, Airbourn (2023) draws on his own expired Syrian passport, while Adnan Farzat's Forgotten Moments (2020) uses a passport-like format to evoke his memories of Syria that are being slowly erased by time and conflict. Iranian-born artists Batool Showghi and Amak Mahmoodian in The Immigrant Book, No. 3 (2018) and Shenasnameh (2016) draw upon bureaucratic documents to show how identity is defined and fragmented.

Daniel Lowe, Curator, Arabic Collections

 

Further reading:

Gharbieh, Ahmad. “You Can’t Get There from Here: Notes on the New Lebanese Passport Design.” Journal Safar, vol. 3, 2017. (ZP.9.a.894)

Keshavarz, Mahmoud. The Design Politics of the Passport: Materiality, Immobility, and Dissent. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. (YC.2019.a.5851 and ELD.DS.346541)

Keshavarz, Mahmoud, and Ayla Kekhia. “The Design Politics of Passports: Materiality, Immobility, and Dissent.” Journal Safar, vol. 5, 2020. (ZP.9.a.894)

The first part of this blog post on the Gitagovinda, a 12th-century Sanskrit poem by Jayadeva devoted to the Hindu god Krishna, explored the contents of the poem and its allegorical interpretations. This post will focus on the region in eastern India which gave birth to the Gitagovinda, and the role of the Gitagovinda in the ritual of the Jagannatha temple at Puri.

The region known as Orissa (now Odisha) in eastern India has been the cradle of various traditions and religions. In the 6th century BCE, it had associations with Buddhism and Jainism. For centuries, both these traditions received patronage from the rulers of the region. From the accounts of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE it can be inferred that as the result of contact between the royal families in Odisha and Sri Lanka, there were mutual influences on religion through the local tribes who worshipped their own deities. The new settlers Sanskritised the names of these deities and worshipped the local gods, but did not change their iconographic features, as a sign of respect to the religious sentiment of the local dwellers. Even Mahayana Buddhists incorporated some aspects of the local pantheon into their belief system during the 5th and 6th centuries CE.

Avatars of Vishnu. Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with black ink illustrations, 18th century. Or. 13502, fols. 4v, 5r

Throughout the 4th-7th centuries CE different dynasties in the region worshipped Vishnu in various forms, like Narayana or Madhava, and certain royals, although claiming to be devout worshippers of Gokarneshvara (Shiva), granted charters in favor of the god Narayana, or even a village to the god Vishnu (Mishra 1971: 7, 8). Such grants of land were made by the rulers to Brahmins or to temples. Compared to royal families, elite groups such as merchants, military chiefs and nobles were more influential in activities such as temple building between the 6th and the 12th centuries (Singh 1994: 6, 296). It was in such an environment that the cult of Jagannatha emerged and developed.

In the 12th century, Vishishtadvaita vada, the Vaishnava devotional sect from South India, was influential in Odisha. According to Vaishnava traditional accounts, Ramanuja, the great Vedanta philosopher and one of the most important exponents of the Vaishnava tradition, visited Puri in Odisha in the early 12th century and established a school in the city. Having met and influenced the king of Puri, Ramanuja introduced the ritual of Vaishnavism to the Jagannatha temple. Consequently, Jagannatha has since been worshipped as the supreme form of Vishnu (Stoller Miller 1977: 5). As a result of this neo-Vaishnavism being merged with the remnants of other traditions in the region, Vaishnavite deities were worshipped in a Buddhist Tantric way, with an admixture of Brahmanical ritualism.

Deities on the first folio of the manuscript, Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with black ink illustrations, 18th century. Or. 13502, f. 3r

Originating in eastern India in the 12th century, the Gitagovinda soon spread across the whole of the Indian subcontinent. By the 15th century, the Gitagovinda had already become part of the ritual of the Jagannatha temple at Puri, whose construction started in the 10th century and was completed in the 12th century. Because of their role in the nightly worship of Krishna, the songs of the Gitagovinda have been chanted in the Jagannatha temple for more than seven hundred years and are revered throughout Odisha. A key aspect of Odissi, a classical dance originating from Odisha, is the performance of these songs as the art form was developed through the religious art of temple dancers who dance Gitagovinda songs in praise of Jagannatha.


The Jagannatha temple with the three deities, depicted across all 12 folios of palmleaf, in a manuscript of Gitagovinda, with Sanskrit text in minute Oriya script. British Library, Or. 14110.

A unique manuscript of the Gitagovinda (Or. 14110), a copy of unknown date, was acquired by the British Library in 1982. It is a stitched palm-leaf folding book consisting of 12 leaves altogether with the text and illustrations only on the obverse. The poem’s Sanskrit verses are written in minute Oriya script, and there are also Sanskrit mantras written in Oriya script throughout the text.

This manuscript stands out for its format, layout, and artwork, because the text and accompanying illustrations are arranged in the shape of the façade of the Jagannatha temple at Puri in Odisha. There are three figures in the center, the deities Jagannatha, Subhadra (the younger sister of gods Krishna and Balarama also known as Balabhadra) and Balabhadra (the elder brother of Krishna). This trio of deities is worshipped at the Jagannatha temple.

Detail of the three deities in the Jagannatha temple, in a manuscript of Gitagovinda, with Sanskrit text in minute Oriya script. British Library, Or. 14110.

As mentioned, the history of the Jagannatha temple shows an amalgam of various influences and traditions. According to the 15th-century poet and scholar, Saraladasa, the cult of Jagannatha was identified with the cult of the Trimurti, the three supreme Hindu deities: Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver) and Shiva (the destroyer). Saraladasa equates Subhadra with Brahma. But since the Jagannatha temple is still dedicated to the cult of Hari-Hara (Vishnu-Shiva) and the worship of Sri Vidya (the Goddess), Subhadra is suggested to stand for Shakti (Hindu paramount goddess and consort of Shiva) who was worshipped in the form of Ekanamsa. The name Ekanamsa was changed to Subhadra, and consequently the goddess lost her position as the principal deity (Starza 1993: 63, 64). Balabhadra is sometimes considered as Shiva and sometimes as Ananta or the serpent, therefore representing the Naga cult, i.e. snake worship. But in essence, he is one of the deities in the Puranas (sacred literature of the Hindus which serves as a popular encyclopedic collection of myths, legends and genealogy) (Mishra 1971: 157).

Avatars of Vishnu, Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with coloured illustrations, 18th century. IO San 3508, f. 5r

Most Vaishnavites, particularly Krishnaites, consider Jagannatha to be an abstract representation or avatar of Krishna or Vishnu. It has been suggested that Jagannatha may have originally been a local deity of an unknown tribe, whose worship was later incorporated into Brahmanism. When this new god was introduced, he was regarded as another manifestation of Vishnu.

Further reading:

Mishra, Kanhu Charan. The Cult of Jagannātha. [1st ed.]. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1971.
Mukherjee, Prabhat. 1981. The History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.
Singh, Upinder. Kings, Brāhmaṇas, and Temples in Orissa: An Epigraphic Study AD 300-1147. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1994.
Starza, Olgierd Maria Ludwik. The Jagannatha Temple at Puri: Its Architecture, Art and Cult. Studies in South Asian Culture. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993. 
Stoler Miller, Barbara. Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda. UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

Azadeh Shokouhi, Sanskrit cataloguer

Acknowledgment: Special thanks to Dr Arani Ilankuberan, the Head of South Asia collections, and to Pasquale Manzo, Lead Curator South Asia Collections and Curator of the Sanskrit collections, for their comments and suggestions.

This guest blog is by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra, Adjunct Professor at UNIMAS, Institute of Borneo Studies, Malaysia, and Associate Academic, History of Art, University of Oxford.

The use of photography in anthropology has a complex history, particularly when it comes to representing indigenous communities through early ethnographic research. When viewing collections such as the early 20th-century images of Sri Lanka’s Vedda community captured by Charles and Brenda Seligman, it is crucial to evaluate them not just for their historical significance but also through the ethical and legal frameworks that apply today.

The British Museum holds around 2,200 artefacts donated by the Seligmans mainly from Oceania, China and Africa, as well as a similar number of photographs, including over 400 glass negatives and prints documenting the Seligmans’ 1908 field research in Sri Lanka. Although the glass slides are yet to be fully catalogued, many of their photographs were reproduced in their seminal publication, The Veddas, two copies of which are held in the British Library (Seligmann 1911; note the different spelling of the surname). The publication’s images were produced in an era devoid of any standardised ethical guidance, whether in the taking or in the publication of such images.


‘The Vedda country, view from Bendiyagalge rocks’. Photograph from C.G. and B.Z. Seligmann, The Veddas (1911). British Library, T 11173, facing title page.

This article delves into the ethical implications and legal considerations surrounding these early photographs and reflects on the biases embedded in them. It also calls for and outlines potential frameworks for ‘fair and responsible’ representation of these images in contemporary settings, emphasizing the need for sensitivity in handling such cultural artifacts (Amerasinghe Ganendra 2023).


‘Sita Wanniya of Henebedda’, photographs from C.G. and B.Z. Seligmann, The Veddas (1911). British Library, T 11173, Plate V (p. 50) and Plate VI (p. 52).

Colonial Context and the Use of Photography
To understand the context in which the Seligman photographs were taken, it is essential to first explore the nature of British colonial presence in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and how photography was used as a tool of empire. British colonial policy in Ceylon, as in many other colonies, was grounded in the pursuit of power, profit, and prestige. Photography, emerging in the mid-19th century, became intertwined with colonial interests, portraying Indigenous people through a lens that emphasized their ‘exotic’ and ‘primitive’ qualities.

Ceylon, like India, saw a flourishing of commercial photographers in the 19th century, including names like Frederick Fiebig, Samuel Bourne, and Joseph Lawton, among others. Their work, often grouped under broad categories such as ‘ethnographic studies’ or ‘native types,’ served as visual documentation that reinforced stereotypes of indigenous peoples as culturally backward or inferior. These photographic genres, steeped in the prevailing racial hierarchies of the time, also reinforced the Vedda community’s “enduring marker” as an isolated, primitive group on the fringes of Sri Lankan society.

The Seligmans’ photographic project must be situated within this broader colonial tradition, where the visual documentation of ‘native’ populations was both a scholarly endeavour and an act of classification that supported colonial governance. Despite their groundbreaking contributions to the field of anthropology, the Seligmans were inevitably influenced by these biases, which framed the Veddas as a distinct and dying race worthy of preservation through scientific study.

The colonial portrayal of the Veddas did not begin with the Seligmans. The earliest English-language account of the community came from Robert Knox in 1681, whose description, despite being hearsay, remained an authoritative reference for over two centuries (Knox 1981b). Later colonial administrators and scholars, such as Rudolph Virchow and the Swiss naturalists Fritz and Paul Sarasin, echoed these notions of the Veddas as ‘intellectually inferior’ and ‘socially primitive’ (Virchow 1886; Kulatilake 2020).


‘A Vadda or Wild Man’. Robert Knox, An historical relation of the island Ceylon, 1681 (reprint; Colombo: Gunasena, 1981). British Library, YA.1988.b.25, p.100

These ideas were so pervasive that they coloured the work of subsequent anthropologists, including the Seligmans. This ‘Seligman bias,’ named here to reflect their role in reinforcing these perspectives, encapsulates the tendency to view the Veddas through a lens of isolation and stagnation, despite evidence of their dynamic interactions with other Sri Lankan groups. For example, the Seligmans repeatedly emphasized the Veddas’ physical and cultural distinctiveness from the Sinhalese, using selective observations to support this view, even when alternative explanations, such as the impact of nutrition on stature, were more plausible.

Legal and Ethical Constructs: Then and Now
When the Seligmans conducted their research, there were no ethical guidelines to dictate how indigenous subjects should be photographed or represented. Their project predated the formation of institutional ethics codes by decades, leaving researchers to rely on their own judgment, which was often skewed by contemporary scientific and cultural prejudices.

It was not until the mid-20th century that formal ethical constructs began to emerge, prompted by the horrors of World War II and the establishment of the United Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.  The subsequent United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007 codified principles of dignity and respect that extended to the cultural and intellectual property of indigenous communities. In more recent decades, guidelines such as the Code of Ethics for Research in the Social and Behavioural Sciences and the Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings have emphasized fairness, respect, and the need for collaboration with research subjects. These protocols require active engagement with the communities being represented, ensuring that their voices shape the narrative around their own histories.

Given the advances in both legal and ethical standards, how should we approach the Seligman Collection today? The main challenge lies in navigating the tension between preserving the historical significance of these photographs and addressing the biases they embody. Here are some considerations for presenting the Collection in a ‘fair and responsible’ manner:

1. Provide Historical and Ethical Context
Each photograph should be accompanied by a contextual preface that outlines the historical period in which it was taken and the lack of ethical guidelines at the time. This narrative should also highlight the possibility of unconscious bias in the Seligmans’ approach, inviting viewers to critically engage with the images.
2. Collaborate with the Vedda Community
The contemporary Vedda community should be involved in any effort to reframe or present these images. This collaboration could take the form of joint exhibitions, interpretive commentary, and decisions about which images are appropriate for public display. This approach not only aligns with modern ethical standards but also restores agency to the community that has historically been objectified.
3. Protect Sensitive and Sacred Content
Images that depict private or sacred aspects of Vedda life should be handled with extreme care. Unless the Vedda community explicitly consents, these photographs should not be publicly displayed. For example, images of women’s activities or rituals should be reserved for scholarly research only, with strict access protocols in place.
4. Rethink Representation
It is crucial to challenge the narratives that have long been associated with the Seligman images, namely that the Veddas are an isolated, primitive group. Instead, a more nuanced presentation should emphasise their resilience, adaptability, and historical interactions with other communities. This reframing can help dismantle the stereotypes that have contributed to their marginalization and erasure from the national narrative.

Moving Forward: Balancing Historical Value and Ethical Responsibility
The Seligman Collection holds immense historical value, providing rare visual documentation of a community at a particular point in time. Yet, as with any collection produced under colonial conditions, its legacy is fraught with ethical concerns. Addressing these concerns involves more than just reinterpreting the images; it requires a fundamental shift in how we approach early anthropological photography.

By embedding ethical considerations into the way these images are presented and interpreted, we not only honour the subjects of the photographs but also ensure that historical research contributes to a deeper, more respectful understanding of indigenous cultures, historically and into the present. This approach is not just a matter of correcting the biases of the past but of actively shaping a future in which indigenous voices are central to the telling of their own stories.

In conclusion, while the Seligman Collection emerged from a flawed historical context, it offers a unique opportunity to re-evaluate early ethnographic photography and its role in shaping public perceptions of Indigenous peoples. By embracing a framework of ‘fair and responsible’, we can re-present these images from relics of colonial anthropology into powerful tools for education, empathy, and engagement.

Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra

This article is an abbreviated form of a presentation at the workshop at the National Portrait Gallery, London, “The British Empire in the Art Gallery: Practises, Discourses and Publics”, September 27, 2024. 

Further Reading:
Amerasinghe Ganendra, S. (2023). Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in Early Photographs and Collections. Colombo: Neptune.
Hight, Eleanor M. and Gary D. Sampson (2002). Colonialist Photography, Imag(in)ing Race and Place. London: Routledge.
Knox, Robert. (1981) An Historical Relation of the island Ceylon. Colombo: Gunasena.[Reprint of the 1681 ed.]
Kulatilake, S. (2020) ‘The Sarasins’ Collection of Historical Sri Lankan Crania’, Anthropological Science, 128(3), pp. 119–128.
Seligmann, C.G. and Brenda Z. (1911). The Veddas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stambler, B. (2019) ‘Context and Content: Colonial Photographs from Kandy, Ceylon’, in Cross-Cultural Exchange and the Colonial Imaginary: Global Encounters via Southeast Asia. NUS Press, pp. 217–238. 
Virchow, R. (1886) ‘The Veddás of Ceylon, and Their Relation to the Neighbouring Tribes’, The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 9(33), pp. 349–495.