SAI will be hosting Nepalese artist Milan Rai at Harvard from April 11-15, 2016. His public art exhibit of white butterflies will be spread across campus during the week. He will also visit courses, meet with students and faculty, and give a public talk on April 13.
Made possible by the Dean of the Division of Social Science’s Donald T. Regan Lecture Fund and the Arts Advisory Council, SAI’s Visiting Artist Program brings emerging artists from South Asia to Harvard’s campus, to engage with Harvard students, faculty, and community members. The program allows the Harvard community to engage with artists of diverse backgrounds, whose work of various mediums address social, economic, and political issues in South Asia.
Artist Talk: White Butterfly
Wednesday, April 13, 4:00pm – 05:30pm, CGIS Knafel, K050, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Art Seminar
Milan Rai, Visiting Artist, South Asia Institute Art Program
Chair: Jinah Kim, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
Rai’s White Butterfly project was a personal art installation that has grown with a global outreach for different community causes and concerns. It is a demonstration of how the role of art can take different turns when shared across social media, connecting people and communities to effect social change and awareness. From Scotland to Greece to New York to Africa over the past two years, many connections around the world have been established.
Those connections became an unexpected source of support and real change in rapid response to the earthquake disasters in Nepal this year, initiating funding projects for immediate relief to provide sanitation facilities, toilets rebuilding a school and relocating an entire village. In this talk, Rai will introduce The White Butterfly project to the faculty and students at Harvard in the form of a retrospective photographic exhibition, including an interactive presentation.