The art of dialogic silence in the way of tea: Rethinking space and time for contemplation

TY - JOUR

T1 - The art of dialogic silence in the way of tea

T2 - Rethinking space and time for contemplation

AU - Murakami, Kyoko

PY - 2019/1/2

Y1 - 2019/1/2

N2 - In this article I explore silence as dialogue in human communication and address its relevance to silence in heritage sites and museums. Instead of treating silent responses as negative or pedagogical failure, I approach silence from an eclectic perspective informed by linguistic philosophy, social anthropology and cultural psychology and present an analysis of dialogic silence in relation to the nearly 500-year-old ritual practice of Chado, commonly known as the Japanese tea ceremony. I engage with key concepts of dialogue and silence in order to draw parallels between museums and heritage sites on one hand, and the practice of Chado, performed in the tearoom, on the other. I suggest how the performance of ritual in the Chado tearoom takes place in a heterotopic and heterochronic space of dialogue and of contemplation in silence, where people set aside the concerns of everyday life in a suspended time away from an otherwise unpredictable and violence-prone world. I then argue that heritage sites and museums can be seen as spaces of contemplation akin to the space of the tea ceremony, a comparison which offers an alternative perspective on the crisis of representation, the limitations of language and the problem of visitor fatigue.

AB - In this article I explore silence as dialogue in human communication and address its relevance to silence in heritage sites and museums. Instead of treating silent responses as negative or pedagogical failure, I approach silence from an eclectic perspective informed by linguistic philosophy, social anthropology and cultural psychology and present an analysis of dialogic silence in relation to the nearly 500-year-old ritual practice of Chado, commonly known as the Japanese tea ceremony. I engage with key concepts of dialogue and silence in order to draw parallels between museums and heritage sites on one hand, and the practice of Chado, performed in the tearoom, on the other. I suggest how the performance of ritual in the Chado tearoom takes place in a heterotopic and heterochronic space of dialogue and of contemplation in silence, where people set aside the concerns of everyday life in a suspended time away from an otherwise unpredictable and violence-prone world. I then argue that heritage sites and museums can be seen as spaces of contemplation akin to the space of the tea ceremony, a comparison which offers an alternative perspective on the crisis of representation, the limitations of language and the problem of visitor fatigue.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Dialogue

KW - silence

KW - ritual

KW - liminality

KW - contemplation

U2 - 10.1080/13527258.2018.1448881

DO - 10.1080/13527258.2018.1448881

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1352-7258

VL - 25

SP - 43

EP - 53

JO - International Journal of Heritage Studies

JF - International Journal of Heritage Studies

IS - 1

ER -