Online
11 June 2024
Convened by Surya Bowyer
Paper Cuts: Art, Bureaucracy, & Silenced Histories in Colonial India at Peltz Gallery examined a collection of works on paper made by British colonialists in nineteenth-century India. Seen in public for the first time, the collection was placed into dialogue with contemporary artworks by Ravista Mehra and Divya Sharma. Paper Cuts critically reflected on the silencing effect of the colonial archive – and pointed toward a more equitable future.
BAN supported three events as part of the exhibition, including an Artists’ Talk, an Expert Panel, and an Early Career Workshop.
The Artists’ Talk featured the two exhibited artists, award-winning multidisciplinary artist Divya Sharma MRSS and award-winning visual storyteller Ravista Mehra.
The Expert Panel brought together three leading curators who work with colonial histories across the UK: Sushma Jansari, Curator of South Asian Collections at the British Museum, London; Zandra Yeaman, Curator of Discomfort at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow; and Alex Patterson, Assistant Curator at National Museums Liverpool.
The Early Career Workshop developed skills and methods for curating colonialism. It centred on a hands-on re-curation of the exhibition, with participants thinking about how they would put on an exhibition with the same material and exhibits.
The Artists’ Talk and Early Career Workshop were both in-person. In order to facilitate cross-country discussion in the Expert Panel, this was hosted on Zoom by the British Art Network. This meant that the event was viable even with the three speakers’ busy schedules. It also allowed geographically dispersed participants to attend the event.
Each event attracted different attendee demographics, without much crossover between the three events. A key learning, therefore, is that exhibition event programmes should be heterogeneous if they wish to attract a wider variety of attendees.
