Bodhisattva with a Camera: Reimagining Subjectivities in Contemporary Photography Portraiture with Buddhist Philosophy

Zihan Yuan

doi:10.47297/wsprolaadWSP2634-786522.20250604

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Bodhisattva with a Camera: Reimagining Subjectivities in Contemporary Photography Portraiture with Buddhist Philosophy

Volume 6, Issue 4

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Bodhisattva with a Camera: Reimagining Subjectivities in Contemporary Photography Portraiture with Buddhist Philosophy
Bodhisattva with a Camera: Reimagining Subjectivities in Contemporary Photography Portraiture with Buddhist Philosophy
Ethel Walker School, Connecticut (U.S.), Simsbury, 06070, USA
Vol. 6, Issue 4, Pages: 113-118(2025)
Published：30 August 2025
DOI：10.47297/wsprolaadWSP2634-786522.20250604
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Yuan Zihan.Bodhisattva with a Camera: Reimagining Subjectivities in Contemporary Photography Portraiture with Buddhist Philosophy[J].Research on Literary and Art Development,2025,06(04):113-118.
DOI：

Yuan Zihan.Bodhisattva with a Camera: Reimagining Subjectivities in Contemporary Photography Portraiture with Buddhist Philosophy[J].Research on Literary and Art Development,2025,06(04):113-118. DOI： 10.47297/wsprolaadWSP2634-786522.20250604.

摘要

Abstract

In Camera Lucida (1980)

Roland Barthes turned to Buddhism for designations of photography's transcendence over verbal signs: śūnya

"emptiness" immanent in all things

and tathāta

"thus-ness" captured by the immediacy of photographic meaning-making. Invoked only at the outset

these terms and the vast philosophical system behind them nevertheless shaped his pursuit of subjectivity in photography.This practice-as-research project advances Barthes's nascent yet promising dialogue that triangulates photography

subjectivity

and Buddhist philosophy. Drawing on core ideas from early Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle") scriptures

it reformulates the critical understanding and practical methodology of photographic portraiture. As art historian Catherine Soussloff argues

modern subjectivity was first constructed visually through the genre of portraiture as an inherently social and psychological process that identifies an interior space beneath the informational exterior. Similarly

in early Mahāyāna

various Buddhist sects in conversation across South and East Asia reconfigured their relationship to human society (and subjectivities) through a more altruistic and egalitarian philosophical outlook underscored by Karuṇa (Compassion)

Bodhisattvayāna (Bodhisattva Path)

and Sūnyatā (Emptiness).Grounded in interdisciplinary research in art history

philosophy

and photography theory

this paper proposes a new ethical dimension of universal compassion and social responsibility in addition to the exterior-interior duality in understanding portraiture and the various subjectivities associated with the making and viewing of this genre.

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Keywords

references

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