ReOrientalisms.

Previous title, replaced March 2024 : Asian medicine in the West. Colour photograph by Chila Kumari Burman, 2004.

[England], 2004.

1 photograph : Cibachrome on paper ; paper approximately 153 x 102 cm

Complemented by : Burman, Chila Kumari. ReOrientalisms. [England], 2004 (b33211619)

Chila Kumari Burman. All rights reserved.

Wellcome Collection 625315i

Exhibited in Wellcome Library interactive programme, 2006.

Exhibition text for Wellcome Library interactive programme: "As populations migrate, they take their traditions with them and create new cultural syntheses as the arriving culture fuses with the domestic culture. The migration of Indian and Chinese into Great Britain since the 1950s, bringing their therapeutic traditions to the western high street, is the subject of this photograph. It documents therapeutic products that were available in London and a few other places over the long hot Bank Holiday weekend of 31 August 2004. It includes flyers, brochures, advertisements and packaging advertising Chinese, Indian, Tibetan, Japanese and Korean therapeutic and bodycare products and techniques. The documents were collected into a collage and then photographed, leaving the photograph as the finished work. It was created by Chila Kumari Burman, an artist of Indian descent whose work has been widely exhibited in England and abroad, and who specializes in the incorporation of colourful street fashions into works of art."

Title provided by the artist.

This work is a photograph of an original collage of the same title by the same artist, also held by Wellcome Collection.

Sources of collage materials: sales materials from Acumedic shop, Camden High Street, London; exhibitors at The therapy fair, Business Design Centre, Islington, 28-30 August 2004; Events at the Feel Good Again show, Business Design Centre, Islington, 28-30 August 2004; a shop in Durban; Ylang Ylang shop, Pully, Switzerland; branches of Bodyshop, London; shop in Berwick Street, London; Harmony shop in Soho, London; Mysteries shop, 9-11 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London; Fresh and Wild health food shop, Old Street, London; Indian grocer in Drummond Street, London. Magazine cuttings from Kindred spirit, UK's leading guide to mind, body & spirit, July/August 2004; Prediction, UK's original mind, body, spirit magazine; Optimum nutrition, Autumn 2004; Positive health, September 2003. Book extracts from Wee Yeow Chin et al. An illustrated dictionary of Chinese medicinal herbs, Times editions 1990; Chakras book (from Acumedic); Buddhism decoder (from Acumedic); Mendhi book. Library material from Wellcome Library.