The Mittal Institute is excited to announce the release of the 2023–24 Year in Review and 2023–24 Arts Program reports. Like every year, the comprehensive Year in Review Report includes updates on all major faculty-led programs, lists awards and fellowships, highlights the work of students, student organizations, and scholars, and summarizes events and other achievements. The Arts Program Report highlights the incredible impact and accomplishments of the Mittal Institute’s various arts initiatives, which include fellowships, exhibitions, and events. Both reports offer valuable insights into the institute’s mission of connecting Harvard with South Asia.
Explore the highlights of the academic year 2023–24 below!
Prof. Tarun Khanna
Prof. Tarun Khanna, Mittal Institute Faculty Director, on “Another Extraordinary Year”
It’s been another extraordinary year. The Mittal Institute has now become a well-known Harvard hub for all things South Asia. Each year, faculty and students come to us with new and fascinating collaborations. Our full events calendar has attracted standing-room-only attendance, with discussions covering everything from arts to economics to science. We also continue to support new and important research on climate change, health care, education, and arts, and we’re excited to share all of it with you in our Year in Review 2023–24 Report.
As we move forward, we will continue to explore new avenues for impactful scholarship, ensuring that our work resonates across Harvard and beyond. Of course, all of this is possible because of our dedicated staff in Cambridge and in-region, our faculty collaborators, supporters of the institute, and many Harvard partners. My greatest privilege as director of the Mittal Institute has been to work with such committed colleagues to deepen understanding of South Asia.
Thank you for being a part of that journey!
Read Prof. Khanna’s full opening letter of the Year in Review 2023–24 Report here.
Dipti Mathur, Mittal Institute Arts Council Chair, Looks Back at “Another Wonderful Year of Arts”
Dipti Mathur
Another wonderful year of arts at the Mittal Institute has featured talented Visiting Artist Fellows, inspiring exhibitions, and an engaging architecture conference!
In the fall of 2023, we hosted Atul Bhalla as the Mittal Institute’s Distinguished Climate Artist in Residence, as well as photographer Cop Shiva and visual artist Garima Gupta from India as Visiting Artist Fellows. Similarly, last spring, the Mittal Institute welcomed two fellows from Pakistan, Amra Khan and Waleed Zafar.
The Mittal Institute presented two exhibitions; the virtual “Crossing Many Seas,” featuring works by past recipients of the Visiting Artist Fellowship, Sudipta Das and Ishita Chakraborty. On the Cambridge campus, the Mittal Institute co-sponsored a major exhibition, “HUM SAB EK” (We Are One), which emerged from Dr. Satchit Balsari’s research on the pandemic’s impact on the 2.9 million-strong Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India.
Another major arts initiative this year was a landmark architecture conference, “Architectures of Transition – Frameworks and Practices in South Asia,” led by Prof. Rahul Mehrotra. The three-day conference, hosted by the Mittal Institute’s India office, brought together architects from the region to reflect upon the breadth of work undertaken in South Asia and provided a space for architectural discourse and innovation.
Read Dipti Mathur’s full opening letter of the Arts Program 2023–24 Report here.
