This spring, the Mittal Institute welcomes two new Visiting Artist Fellows from Lahore, Pakistan – Amra Fatima Khan and Waleed Zafar. Meet Waleed, an interdisciplinary visual artist and curator whose work explores South-Asian identity based on historical, socio-political and genetic markers. Learn about his artistic motivations and save the date for the March 4 Visiting Artist Fellows Art Exhibition.

This spring, the Mittal Institute welcomes two new Visiting Artist Fellows from Lahore, Pakistan – Amra Fatima Khan and Waleed Zafar. Meet Amra, an interdisciplinary artist who investigates queer and alpha male archetypes through her work. Learn about her artistic motivations and save the date for the March 4 Visiting Artist Fellows Art Exhibition.

The Mittal Institute welcomed two new Visiting Artist Fellows, Cop Shiva and Garima Gupta, to campus for the start of their eight-week research fellowship at Harvard. The program allows mid-career visual artists from around South Asia to spend eight weeks on the Harvard campus. The VAF differs from a typical artist residency program in that it is research-centered, providing artists with the vast resources of Harvard’s intellectual community to enhance their artistic practice. Cop and Garima share more about their artistic motivations below. And save the date to join them at the Mittal Institute's Visiting Artist Fellows Art Exhibition on Tuesday, October 10, where they will share more of their work with our community.

The "Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE" exhibit tells the story of early Buddhist art through 125 objects dating from 200 BCE to 400 CE. Conceptualized by John Guy, Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia in The Met’s Department of Asian Art, the exhibit was a complex logistical exercise, with major loans—of which many are loaned for the first time—from India, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. We spoke with John Guy about the exhibit, and what it took to bring it to the public. 

Deep in a bank vault of Mumbai’s Asiatic Society lies a revered treasure that is much studied in textbooks but rarely seen. The early 16th-century painted manuscript (dated 1516 CE), one of the oldest of its kind in the world, requires a committee’s approval to see the light of day – a committee that had remained elusive to Prof. Jinah Kim, an expert in South Asian art, for years. But last September, her proposal to study the painted manuscript finally got the go-ahead, and capturing the color from the rare piece of work may just change the study of South Asian art – and maybe all of Asian art – forever.

The Mittal Institute’s inaugural Distinguished Artist Fellow, Nilima Sheikh, will soon join us in residence on the Harvard campus from her home of Baroda, India. A renowned painter, Nilima has been a career artist for more than 50 years. We spoke with her about what led her to apply for a DAF, and her hopes for her experience.

The Mittal Institute presents its Spring Fellows and Visiting Artist Fellows.