09:00
King's College London
April 27
Bush House Room: (NE) 0.01 Strand campus, 30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG
In the later 20th century, some commentators talking about museums in India as inappropriate and irrelevant relics of the colonial past seemed to anticipate their further decline or possibly their disappearance from public view, like statues of British imperial leaders. Over the past couple of decades, Indian public perception of the museum has changed, particularly in the eyes of middle-class audiences. A wide-ranging research project led by Saloni Mathur and Kavita Singh (no touching, no praying: the museum in south Asia, Routledge 2015) supported by a cohort of student researchers who carried out fieldwork across the country, drew attention to a fascinating and diverse pattern of responses to the past and innovative museum-like developments. Over the past decade, the pace of development has sped up with significant public and private funding. This lecture will explore these more recent developments, some of which were anticipated by Mathur and Singh, some not.
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Deborah Swallow CBE is an art historian and museum scholar with a distinguished career in the study of art, material culture, and museums, particularly in relation to South Asia. She is a former President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and former Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art, where she played a major role in shaping one of the world’s leading centres for the study of art history and conservation. Her work has long engaged with Indian art, exhibitions, and museum cultures, and she is widely recognised for her contributions to art history, curatorial practice, and higher education.