Imperial Subjects Online Seminar Series

Glynn Vivian Art Gallery invite you to join them for an online seminar series exploring Wales' relationship with South Asia. The series has been organised by Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in partnership with South Asian art historian Dr Zehra Jumabhoy, and has been adapted for delivery online.

The seminar series consists of four events, paired as Week One and Week Two. Delegates are welcome to register for either or both weeks. The events are free to attend. Spaces are limited, with booking essential.

Everyone is welcome, particularly members of the subject specialist British Art Network. Separate registration options are available for British Art Network (BAN) members and for non-members. Should the week you wish to attend be fully booked, please email britishartnetwork@tate.org.uk to be added to a waiting list.

The events will be held over Zoom and delegates will received detailed joining instructions in advance. Live captioning will take place across all seminars. The registration form includes a section to inform us of any access requirements.

Please note that the British Art Network will film and audio record the seminars in this online series in order for the widest possible audience to benefit from these events. Delegates are welcome to turn off their video function should they wish not to be captured on film.

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Imperial Subjects Seminar Series: Week One

Tuesday 12 May 2020, 14.00-16.30 & Thursday 14 May 2020, 14.00-16.00

Registration closes 8 May, 17.00

Seminar One: Exploring Colonial Conversations

12 May 14.00 - 16.30

This seminar will bring together visual artists from India and Wales, whose multi-media work explores themes of identity, migration, colonialisation and collaboration; paying particular attention to Swansea’s status as the second city of Sanctuary.

Presentations by:

• Nikhil Chopra, Artist (Goa, India)

• Peter Finnemore, Artist (Llanelli, Wales)

• Dr Cleo Roberts, Writer on Contemporary Indian Art (Cambridge, UK)

• Shiraz Bayjoo, Artist (London, England)

Q&A led by Dr Zehra Jumabhoy (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Seminar Two: Miniatures and The West

14 May 2020, 14.00-16.00

This event includes curators, art historians and artists who will discuss the two-way traffic between painting in the Mughal courts and European styles. While modern and contemporary South Asian art is often accused of being ‘derivative’ – a narrative that is only now being challenged – little mention is made in academic circles of how South Asian art might have impacted European painting. If this event seeks to fill this gap in historical scholarship, it also aims to highlight that the interaction between British and South Asian art is not a thing of the past: the miniature-inflected work of Cambridge-based Jethro Buck and Elisabeth Deane, who studied under master miniaturists in India, are a case in point.

Presentations by:

• Emily Hannam (Curator, Royal Collection Trust)

Mughal Miniatures in 17th century Europe

• Dr. Mehreen Chida-Razvi (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art)

European Imagery in 16th and 17th Century Mughal Painting

• Artists Jethro Buck (Crane Kalman Gallery) and Elisabeth Deane (Grosvenor Gallery)

'How miniature painting gave me new eyes': Two Artists’ Perspectives

Panel Discussion with the organisers, Katy Freer (Glynn Vivian Art Gallery) & Dr Zehra Jumabhoy (Courtauld Institute of Art)

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Imperial Subjects Seminar Series: Week Two

Tuesday 19 May 2020, 14.00-16.00 & Thursday 21 May 2020, 14.00-16.30

Registration closes 15 May, 17.00

The seminars in Week Two have been organised with the help of Welsh literary historian Professor Daniel G. Williams and India-expert Anne Buddle from Edinburgh’s National Scottish Galleries.

Seminar Three: The Robert Clive Collections and Gifts Re-Examined

19 May 2020, 14.00-16.00

The ways in which historic house collections have been acquired can be troubling and controversial to a 21st century audience. In some cases, these treasures gathered from around the world are the product of conflict, exploitation and plunder. This seminar peeks behind the scenes at one of them: Powis Castle in Wales holds one of the most important collections of South Asian art and artefacts in Europe. The collection was gathered by two generations of the Clive family and contains over 700 objects from 1744-1803. Presentations will explore the origins of the collection, tracing the relationship between colonialism and acquisition. It will include the gift-centred diplomacy of Robert Clive, the collecting habits of Henrietta Clive, and the self-promotion of Edward Clive through the display of Indian arms and armour.

Presentations by:

• Dr Kieran Hazzard (TORCH Scholar, University of Oxford)

The Clives & India: Collecting, Display and Colonialism

• Emily Hannam (Curator, Royal Collection Trust)

Unfortunate negligence or deliberate disregard: blocking communication between the Great Mughal and the King of England

• Uthra Rajgopal (Assistant Curator, The Whitworth)

Pitching your tent: thinking through curatorial strategies for the display of Tipu Sultan’s tent

• Nisha Duggal (Artist in Residence, Powis Castle)

Q&A led by Dr Zehra Jumabhoy (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Seminar Four: Cultural Interactions

21 May 2020, 14.00-16.30

South Asia and Wales have had a long liaison; stretching back to the earliest years of Britain's socio-political infiltration of the Subcontinent. There have even been some academic forays into tracing the similarities between ancient Vedic myths and Celtic legends; between gods and fairies. Yet, for all its rich-ness, this relationship - like much else when it comes to Britain's acknowledgment of Wales - has been largely overlooked. Whilst, the Irish and Scottish connections with South Asia have been explored, there has been little concentrated study on the various cultural, religious, political and mercantile conversations between South India and Wales.

This seminar is the last in the Imperial Subjects series, and marks the beginning of the build-up to a major exhibition, featuring contemporary Welsh and South Asian artists, curated by Glynn Vivian’s Katy Freer and Zehra Jumabhoy. The seminar offers the launching pad for further inter-cultural and multi-disciplinary debates.

Presentations by:

• Prof. Gauri Viswanathan (Columbia University)

Raymond Williams

• Dr Zehra Jumabhoy (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Flights of Fancy: Mountains and the National Imagination

• Gwyneth Tyson Roberts

Cheaper and more efficient than the bayonet: colonial educational policy in mid-nineteenth-century Wales and India

Q&A led by Prof. Daniel G. Williams (Swansea University)

Reflections from curators Katy Freer (Glynn Vivian Art Gallery) and Dr Zehra Jumabhoy (Courtauld Institute of Art)

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The British Art Network is led and supported by Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, with additional public funding provided by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Image: Photograph of the Hussainabad Gate, Lucknow, from Richard Glynn Vivian’s Travel Album: India, 1871. City & County of Swansea: Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Collection