Let in the Light
For international students and faculty alike, moving to another country often means sacrificing some aspects of life from back home. For many, this means having to change the way they honor traditional festivals.
Romita Ray, Associate Professor of Art History, decided to share a piece of home with the Syracuse campus on the occasion of Diwali last week.
Diwali is the Hindu festival that celebrates the conquering of good versus evil, with light being used as a symbol purity. Lighting oil lamps and lanterns, and decorating your home with a variety of lights is a common practice during Diwali.
Professor Ray pioneered an art installation in honour of the festival of lights this year, popularly celebrated across the Indian subcontinent as well as within several Indian diaspora communities. Ray, who teaches a class on the art and architecture of India every fall, incorporated the festival into her syllabus by giving her students an interactive experience of how Diwali is observed. To do so, she decided to display 1000 non-flammable paper luminaries around a part of the Quad.
“This project comes out of the ethos of the class. Not only do the students study the past, but also get to experience the present and the living art of the subcontinent. Diwali’s a great way to celebrate that because it’s all about the art of lighting,” said Ray.
Ray organized a similar project in 2015, when students and faculty lit up the pathways of the Quad with more than 1500 similar kinds of luminaries. This year, she decided to downscale the project and concentrate on one part of the Quad.
“Part of the objective [for this project] is to light up a different part of the campus every year that I teach this course. This year it’s the sculpture garden, but who knows where it will travel next year,” said Ray.
While her project was slightly downscaled this year, Ray remained just as passionate about sharing her memories of Diwali through art. For her, this project also served a social purpose beyond the classroom.
“Through the act of lighting, Diwali celebrates building community, people coming together. I open it up to the entire campus, and I’ve had people show up who had never even heard of Diwali before, come and celebrate the event with us,” she explained. Keeping with this sense of community, a number of organizations on campus supported Ray’s efforts, including her own department of Art & Music History, along with Hendricks Chapel, the South Asia Center and SU’s maintenance organization, Physical Plant, which donated the sand used to stabilize battery-operated candles in paper containers.
“It’s all an SU project,” Ray remarked. “Nearly 200 students and faculty are expected to participate again this year.”
While a number of Indian festivals, including Diwali, originate because of religious practices and mythologies. One of the reasons people continue to observe them is primarily sentimental. For Ray, her memories of celebrating Diwali back home in the Indian city of Kolkata was one of the main reasons that lead her to put on this project.
