Biomedical researcher Annamma Spudich shares her research into the “Hortus Indicus Malabaricus” (“The Garden of Malabar”). Get a unique view into the contributions of Indian scholarship to early modern science in this illustrated presentation focusing on a 17th-century Dutch treatise on Indian botanical medicines.

Image Credit: Frontispiece, Jardin de Lorixa (1690)
Volume 1 (of 14), Paper and pigments. Artist unknown
Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander is widely celebrated for expanding and subverting pre-modern and classical Indo-Persian miniature painting traditions and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. Her practice explores gender roles, cultural identity, racial narratives, and colonial and postcolonial histories. This talk will present her powerful oeuvre, creative process, and multidisciplinary work, illuminating her critical role in bringing miniature painting into dialogue with contemporary art practice. Sikander’s early works from 1988-2003 are currently exhibited at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

Free and Open to the Public

Image Credit: Epistrophe, ink on paper, 10 x 15 feet. Morgan Library Museum,  2021.

In the complex political landscape of the Indian subcontinent in the 16th and 17th centuries, portraits did more than simply convey a likeness of the sitter. This talk, by Marika Sardar , Curator at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, will examine portraits of the monarchs and courtiers of the Deccan Sultanates of Central India, looking at how the backgrounds, clothing and various “props”included in the painting all served to reinforce a certain image of the person depicted.

Image Credit: Malik Ambar of Ahmednagar (c. 1605-1627); artist, Hashim, circa 1624-25; opaque watercolors and gold on paper; Victoria & Albert Museum collection, London, (IM.21-1925); Public Domain Art

SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India invites you to an illustrated talk by ceramic artist and Art journalist, Rahul Kumar.

This talk will give an overview of the contemporary ceramics in India, and dive deeper into a few select practices that have propelled the ancient clay tradition into a futuristic art form. Artists covered will include the masters who have influenced an entire generation of ceramists, and a few of the younger generation, including Rahul Kumar.

Image: Untitled, Ray Meeker