#KUFieldWorks: Reassessing premodern Buddhist temples as sensory environments

Editor’s note: Fieldwork provides invaluable insights about real-world environments and processes, expanding and reinforcing what researchers learn in classrooms, labs and collections. KU faculty, staff and students across a spectrum of disciplines take their inquiry directly to rivers, prairies, dig sites, glaciers, islands, archives and more. Through the #KUFieldWorks series, we'll join them on their adventures.

Q&A with Maya Stiller, associate professor of Korean art and visual culture & director of undergraduate studies in the Kress Foundation Department of Art History

Premodern Buddhist temples are often discussed in Western cultures as relics of a fading tradition. Maya Stiller’s research shows that these buildings are better understood as innovative, “multisensory technologies” that are activated through chanting and ritual movements. She observes these sensory environments in rural Korea to understand the nuances of this cultural heritage.

What methods, approaches, experiments, etc. are you using?

My work combines several approaches that are not often brought together in the study of premodern Buddhist art. I use archival research, epigraphy (the study of ancient inscriptions), and close visual analysis; but I integrate these with spatial theory, acoustics and digital humanities tools such as QGIS mapping and relational database-driven analysis. Much of my recent work views temple interiors not as static repositories of images but as sensory and devotional environments activated through chanting, ritual movement and embodied experience.

Why does your study matter to your field or for society?

Korean Buddhist art has often been framed through narratives of decline and loss. My research challenges those assumptions by showing how monastic communities in pre-modern Korea were innovative and deeply engaged in shaping their own ritual worlds. By challenging the idea of temples as relics of a fading tradition, I hope to give agency back to the communities who created and used these spaces.

On a broader societal level, my work demonstrates how architecture and ritual cultivate forms of attention, embodiment and care that remain relevant today. Temples were essentially early “multisensory technologies” designed to support well-being, ethical reflection and communal belonging. Understanding these spaces on their own terms reminds us how physical environments shape human experience, something that resonates far beyond Buddhist art history.

What do you enjoy most about being in the field?

I love standing inside a temple hall with my camera and notebook and feeling the weight of time in the space, the sense that where I am standing, thousands of people have stood before me over the past three or four centuries. There is something grounding and humbling about that continuity of presence.

But what I enjoy most is talking with the monks, artisans and laypeople who live at or visit these temples today. Their stories, observations and lived experiences often reshape how I see things that I thought I already understood from texts or archival research. Those conversations remind me that these sites are not just historical structures, but living environments shaped by real communities.

What are some memorable (funny, scary, surprising, etc.) moments from the field?

One of my most memorable and initially frustrating experiences occurred when I drove to a remote temple called Magoksa only to discover that the very hall I had come to study was entirely wrapped in scaffolding. The murals I needed to see were under restoration, and for a moment I felt I had lost my only chance to examine them closely. But then one of the conservators took pity on me and invited me to climb up and step underneath the roof structure, about 10 meters above the ground! So instead of losing the opportunity, I ended up with an extraordinary close-up view that I never would have had under normal circumstances. It was a reminder that fieldwork often gives you insights you couldn’t have planned for.

When is fieldwork frustrating, challenging or overwhelming?

Fieldwork becomes challenging when the weather is simply unbearable: Hot, humid days with clouds of mosquitos can make even the most beautiful sites difficult to focus on. Rural transportation in Korea also adds complexity; reaching some temples requires a string of buses, a taxi and then a long uphill hike before you even arrive at the starting point. Thanks to support from the Hall Center for the Humanities, I was able to rent a car during my last research trip, which made visiting remote temples much more manageable, especially since I was carrying a full load of equipment, including a laptop, camera and drone.

But the most overwhelming moments are emotional rather than physical. It’s difficult to stand in front of murals that are deteriorating faster than documentation and conservation can keep up. The weight of preservation (for example, what is already lost and what may not survive) feels very present in those moments, and it reinforces how urgent and fragile this kind of fieldwork can be.

How does fieldwork complement the work you do elsewhere?

Fieldwork grounds everything I do. Many of the arguments in my current book emerged not from texts but from standing inside halls and noticing things the archival record never mentions, such as the way chanting reverberates behind an altar, how light shifts across bracket systems, or the unexpected presence of a donor inscription tucked into an architectural niche. Such discoveries only become visible when you’re physically in the space. And in the office, I analyze the images, videos and manuscripts I’ve collected and integrate them into a relational database that forms the foundation of my research. In short, fieldwork is where I gather the raw material; the office is where I process, interpret, and connect it.

First photo: A collage of KU researchers in the field, intermixed with graphic elements.

Second photo: Maya Stiller examining a Buddhist banner painting of Chikchi Monastery at a conservator’s studio near Seoul.

Third photo: Main Buddha Hall, Pongjŏng Monastery, Andong, North Kyŏngsang Province, South Korea.

Fourth photo: Heavenly Kings’ Gate, Yongyŏn Monastery, Taegu, North Kyŏngsang Province, South Korea.

Fifth photo: Maya Stiller taking photographs inside the main Buddha hall of Chikchi Monastery, Kimch’ŏn, North Kyŏngsang Province, South Korea.