Festival of India
By examining the performative and exhibitionary practices of the 1985-86 Festival of India in the US, this project probes the production of national identities and development of international relations at … Continue reading
Colonial Rhythms
This project examines painting in India at the turn of the 19th century and photography in India in the later 19th century. What did paintings and photographs, particularly of people, … Continue reading
Genealogy of Spinning
In an anti-colonial move toward Indian self-sufficiency, Gandhi in 1909 decided to revive the hand-spinning of cotton into thread. Gandhi’s programme of spinning (as practice) and deployment of the spinning … Continue reading
Modernity & Visual Culture
This project explores how Indian modernity is produced by and through the paradox of how to be both modern and Indian in the post-Independence period from 1947-1980. If the modern … Continue reading
Colonial Patna
Drawing from maps, surveys, extant architecture, paintings and lithographs of the city, and travel narratives, the various phases of this project elucidate the ways that the British colonial presence in … Continue reading
Film & TV
Film and TV provide rich texts for understanding shifts in cultural politics, from questions of Orientalism to understandings of modernity and constructions of the past. These smaller projects examine individual … Continue reading
