Recently, the Mittal Institute teamed up with the Peabody Essex Museum for a discussion on “Partition’s Legacy: South Asian Art on the Line.” Post-independent South Asia is depicted in many forms, with the intent to make sense of its complexities. After the Partition of the subcontinent along the Radcliffe Line, the socio-political ruptures and conflicts that ensued created numerous questions.
Due to COVID-related programming changes, we have reimagined the 2020-2021 Visiting Artist Fellowship. We have selected 14 Visiting Artist Fellows, including photographers, sculptors, videographers, and mixed media artists to attend a series of four online virtual seminars curated for them to support the artists’ long-term practice, while simultaneously contributing to thought-provoking discussions among their peers and the faculty facilitating the class.
Spring 2020 Visiting Artist Fellow Numair Abbasi is a Pakistani artist whose practice draws on popular culture and anecdotes to challenge how gender is socially constructed and performed. In this video, he discusses the work behind his virtual exhibition, Everyday Encounters, with the Harvard Ed Portal.
A recent panel discussion at the Mittal Institute, “Rethinking the Museum Experience During and Post-COVID-19″ — moderated by Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art at Harvard University — explores how art institutions can remain nimble enough to respond to uncertainties, such as COVID-19, adapting their approach to tackle similar situations in the future. How can art institutions engage their patrons as partners in the sustainability of museums?
“The southern border of Nepal, along India, was created 150 years ago by external parties,” says Sagar Chhetri, a visual artist from Nepal and a former Visiting Artist Fellow at the Mittal Institute. When that border was created, communities were cut in two. “[In Nepal], the ruling caste tried to unite all the peoples of the country to create one single Nepali identity. But in the populous open border region, Nepalis and Indians share marital ties, cultures, languages, and histories. With the promise of federalism during the decade-long civil war in Nepal came stronger rhetoric and ideology based on ethnic identity,” he said.
Suhasini Kejriwal, a mixed media artist from India, joined the Mittal Institute earlier this Spring in our latest group of Visiting Artist Fellows. Through photography, paintings, embroidery, and more, Suhasini’s practice acts as witness to the lived experiences of those whom she observes, living out their lives in the busy streets of India’s urban landscapes.
Applications for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 Visiting Artist Fellowship semesters open on Monday, April 13, 2020. The deadline to apply for the both semesters of the fellowship is Monday, May 11, 2020. For more information, click the button below.
Numair Abbasi, a mixed media artist from Pakistan, recently joined the Mittal Institute in the latest group of Visiting Artist Fellows. Numair’s practice draws on popular culture, anecdotes, and colloquialisms to stage personal and social narratives in attempts to challenge the politics behind how gender is socially constructed and performed.
Through the Mittal Institute’s South Asia and the Arts Travel Fund, I traveled to Vadodara, Gujarat and Mumbai, Maharashtra in India to conduct research for my qualifying paper, a requirement in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Harvard University. My qualifying paper explores the conception of the mother-child motif in ancient India within Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, and expands on the function and role of these goddesses and the similarities and differences in their worship.
The digital version of the Mittal Institute’s 2016–2020 Arts Program Report has just been released! The report highlights the Mittal Institute’s Visiting Artist Fellows from 2016–2020, as well as the new developments in the Program on Conservation of Culture. Check out the digital version here to learn more. Below, read Professor Jinah Kim’s introduction to the report and the Arts Program at the Mittal Institute.
Sakshi Gupta is an accomplished sculptor and mixed media artist from India and one of the Mittal Institute’s Fall 2019 Visiting Artist Fellows. Her practice frames human conditions of understanding, progressing, suffering, and halting due to a lack or gain of knowledge, will, or energy. Her work grapples with the need to achieve a balance between life’s inherent polarities, exhibiting this by utilizing materials often considered waste or ordinary. She’s dedicated her life to an immersive journey through form and material, toward the non-material and experiential.
The Mittal Institute is pleased to announce its newest donor, Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, an Indian businessman who is the Chairman of the Bajaj Group, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Hindusthan Limited, and Chairman of Bajaj Corp Limited. His support will create a new, upcoming visiting research fellowship at the Mittal Institute to deepen the teaching and research on significant cultural issues related to South Asia. We spoke with him to learn more about his background and his interest in the Mittal Institute.