̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - India Unboxed

India Unboxed at Open Cambridge’s 10th Anniversary weekend

pbh25 — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 08:00:00 +0000

As Cambridge opens its doors for a special weekend on 8 and 9 September, we invite you to join us on a journey of discovery through the hidden histories, spaces, objects, ideas and people that connect Cambridge and India.

This year is the UK-India Year of Culture and to mark this India Unboxed has been created in Cambridge to examine 150 years of the fascinating and complex shared history of the university-city and India.

From stories of some of the earliest Indian students in Cambridge and of local revolutionaries, through to intriguing items from the archives and museums in Cambridge, and Mill Road’s memories of India, the India Unboxed series in Open Cambridge will highlight the city from new perspectives.

Malavika Anderson, who leads on the India Unboxed programme, said: “We wanted to look at the ways Cambridge and India have interacted over the years. This could be through ground-breaking research but also through very personal stories of Indian students and residents finding their way in Cambridge.

“India Unboxed is a programme of exhibitions, events, digital engagement, discussions, installations and more within the museums and the city of Cambridge. Rooted in the museum collections, the programme will use innovative platforms and formats to explore themes of identity and connectivity for diverse audiences in the UK and India.”

̽��ֱ��free events include a walking tour of Cambridge that will explore 150 Years of Indian History in Cambridge. Guided by a historian, this tour allows attendees to understand the contexts within which some of the early students from India arrived in Cambridge. It offers glimpses into their personal tales of challenge and success, including the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematician whose life was celebrated in the 2015 film ̽��ֱ��Man Who Knew Infinity.

Mill Road Celebrates India is a day of events and activities presented by the Mill Road History Society in association with residents and local businesses of Mill Road - including dance, poetry, music, storytelling, talks and more.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums offer a series of highlights alongside their India-themed exhibitions including: Behind the Scenes at Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, offering access to some of the museum’s collections from India that are not currently on display. ̽��ֱ��series also includes: an Exhibition Tour of Another India by curator Mark Elliott; a Family Film Screening of ̽��ֱ��Jungle Book (1967) in the lawns of the Fitzwilliam Museum; and one of the last chances to catch Imagining India at the Museum of Classical Archaeology.

A special public opening of Freedom and Fragmentation at the Alison Richard Building will display some of the highlights from the ̽��ֱ��’s Centre of South Asian Studies collections. From photographs of the freedom movement to ephemera revealing various aspects of British rule over the sub-continent.

College libraries including Downing College and Trinity College’s Wren Library are showcasing their archival material related to India in specially curated displays. An Open Day at the Ancient India and Iran Trust welcomes visitors into the beautiful Brookland’s Avenue library.

India Unboxed is supported by Arts Council England.

These India Unboxed events are part of the Open Cambridge weekend, now celebrating its tenth year. ̽��ֱ��weekend showcases a diverse range of hidden architectural gems and stunning spaces that are normally closed to the public or charge entry fees. This year’s programme features 97 events, ranging from a Jane Austen manuscript on view at King's College to an art tour of Parker's Piece and the Cambridge Mosque open day. Open Cambridge is a busy weekend and many of the events require pre-booking.

̽��ֱ��city celebrates its links with India throughout the Open Cambridge weekend.

Cambridge and India have interacted over the years... through ground-breaking research but also through very personal stories.

Malavika Anderson

Bookings

Bookings open on Monday 14 August. Book online at www.opencambridge.cam.ac.uk or call 01223 766 766. ̽��ֱ��phone- lines are open between 11am – 3pm, Monday to Friday. There are also plenty of drop-in events for people to enjoy.

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Cambridge museums recognised with substantial Arts Council England funding

sjr81 — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 09:29:58 +0000

Kettle’s Yard, who work in partnership with UCM, has also been awarded £1,163,028 as part of ACE’s National Portfolio, further enhancing the role of the ̽��ֱ��’s Museums and Botanic Garden as the largest cultural provider in the region.

Today’s announcement will enable the ̽��ֱ�� museums and collections to continue their mission of connecting more people with world-class collections of more than eight million objects, to reach new audiences who may face barriers to enjoying and participating in the museums, as well as facilitating and sharing exceptional international research for both Cambridge academics and a global community of researchers and scholars.

̽��ֱ��total economic impact of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Museums and Botanic Garden was estimated to be at least £16m in 2015-16. ̽��ֱ��collections contribute to major academic studies at home and abroad, and last year the museums and Botanic Garden welcomed nearly one million visitors through their doors.

Professor Eilis Ferran, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations at Cambridge, said: “This significant announcement from Arts Council England recognises the important role that the ̽��ֱ��’s Museums and Botanic Garden play in research, learning, understanding and enjoyment. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums exist for all of us, and are open free to the public, and this funding will enable them to continue to share this resource for the future.

“Audience-focused programmes like India Unboxed are a perfect example of our museums’ engagement with communities not just at home, but many thousands of miles away, too. We are working with Indian designers and artists to enable more people to experience our outstanding collections from India, marking the UK-India Year of Culture 2017.

Fitzwilliam Museum Director and Chair of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums Steering Group, Tim Knox said: “National Portfolio status for both the UCM and Kettle’s Yard is a huge privilege and one we take very seriously. Arts Council England has fully supported the huge changes and development we have made in bringing the work of the museums and the Botanic Garden together, and with their continued support there is plenty of exciting work yet to be done.”

UCM Museums Officer Liz Hide said: “ ̽��ֱ��eight ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden represent the country’s highest concentration of internationally important collections outside London. Since 2012, Arts Council funding has transformed the way the museums can work together to open up their collections for everyone. We are delighted that Arts Council England recognises the positive impacts through their continuing support.”

Arts Council funding will enable the UCM to continue its work reaching out to public audiences and bringing the ̽��ֱ��’s exceptional collections and research to many more people, through popular programmes such as Summer at the Museums and a huge range of partnership work with schools, charities, community groups and other cultural organisations across Cambridgeshire and the wider region.

Through temporary and permanent exhibitions, visitors can explore paintings by Titian, Monet and Picasso, biological and geological specimens collected by Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton’s notebooks, Captain Scott’s last letters, early hominid tools discovered in East Africa by Louis Leakey, rare material from now-extinct Dodo, local archaeological and natural history collections, one of the world’s finest collections of casts of Greek and Roman sculpture, and meteorites and moon rock from beyond our planet.

Both Kettle’s Yard and the Museum of Zoology are currently undergoing major redevelopments and will reopen in the coming year with substantially improved exhibitions, visitor facilities and resources, demonstrating the ̽��ֱ��’s ongoing commitment to improve and increase access to its collections.

Recent innovations and successes for UCM have included Cam Lates – alternative, after-hours events at the museums featuring improv comedy, music and film screenings , Twilight at the Museums, where families explore the museums by torchlight after hours– and the launch of India Unboxed, a wide-ranging programme of exhibitions, events and a film series.

Cambridge’s reputation as a centre of excellence for museums and culture in the UK received a vital boost today when Arts Council England (ACE) awarded ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums (UCM) more than £4.8m and National Portfolio Organisation status from 2018-2022.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums exist for all of us.

Eilis Ferran

Martin Bond

Twilight at the Museums, ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum

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World’s oldest, illustrated Sanskrit manuscript launches India Unboxed film series

sjr81 — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:03:08 +0000

̽��ֱ��answer is India – and Cambridge. Among the many millions of objects held across the ̽��ֱ��’s eight museums, Botanic Garden, Centre for South Asian Studies, and ̽��ֱ�� Library, are a huge number of wonders related to the world’s largest democracy.

̽��ֱ��stories behind some of these singular objects are being told in a series of short films as part of a year-long celebration across the ̽��ֱ�� and city of Cambridge to mark the UK–India Year of Culture 2017.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Indian independence in 2017, Cambridge has turned its gaze eastwards with India Unboxed – to highlight the astonishing artworks, artefacts, orchids and scientific instruments that have made their way to Cambridge over the past 800 years.

̽��ֱ��films will explore and explain why a tin of Fine Indian and Ceylon Tea was packed for an Antarctic expedition at the turn of the 20th century; how a brass transit instrument was used in the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India; and what a gharial actually is.

Malavika Anderson, Cultural Programmer for the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums, said: “ ̽��ֱ��collections of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums include a fascinating variety of objects, specimens, art works, photographs and manuscripts from across South Asia.

“India Unboxed is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate these significant collections - to look closer at the fascinating and often complex stories of identity and connectivity between the UK and the Indian subcontinent. Throughout this year the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums will host special exhibitions, events and experiences that invite you to explore India through our collections.

India Unboxed is rooted in the ̽��ֱ��’s museum collections, and involves academics, local diasporic communities and artists from India and the UK. ̽��ֱ��rich programme creatively unpicks the tangled relationships of the two countries, fusing historical context with contemporary perspectives.

̽��ֱ��India Unboxed film series begins with ̽��ֱ��Perfection of Wisdom – taking a close look at the world’s oldest dated and illustrated Sanskrit manuscript, held at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Over the course of six centuries Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s collection has grown from a few dozen volumes on a handful of subjects into an extraordinary accumulation of several million books, maps, manuscripts and journals.

̽��ֱ��library is also home to an extraordinary collection of Buddhist works, amongst which is one very important Sanskrit palm leaf manuscript.

This manuscript is about a thousand years old and has one of the most famous titles in world literature — the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā or ̽��ֱ��Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines. ̽��ֱ��Perfection of Wisdom offers a path to enlightenment and signifies the formal introduction to Buddhist thought.

Certain events from the Buddha’s life feature prominently: his birth, his first teaching, his death, the attack by an elephant, the monkey giving him honey, and his return to Sāmkāśya after teaching his mother in heaven.

Craig Jamieson, Keeper of Sanskrit Manuscripts at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library, said: “ ̽��ֱ��many beautiful and well-preserved images are tiny but incredibly complex at the same time. Given that the nature of the medium, the palm leaf, places many restrictions on what an artist can do, the variety and detail in the illustrations of these manuscripts is astonishing.

“To this day,1,000 years on, the palm leaf manuscripts are still helping to further research on the intellectual traditions, religious cults, literature and political ideas of South Asia.”

Over the course of the series, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library is one of just eleven collections showcased in film. Other collections include: the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Botanic Garden, the Museum of Classical Archaeology, the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Polar Museum, and the archives of the Centre of South Asian Studies.

For more information about the India Unboxed exhibitions, events, digital interventions, discussions and installations, visit www.india.cam.ac.uk

What connects a head-hunter’s trophy, a meteorite, Hercules, a painting of a Hindu temple, an ornate desk, a brass instrument, a tin of tea (unopened), an exotic orchid, a gharial, stacks of home movies and 8,000 lines of Sanskrit manuscript?

To this day, 1,000 years on, the palm leaf manuscripts are still helping to further research.

Craig Jamieson

India Unboxed: ̽��ֱ��Perfection of Wisdom

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Seventy years of Indian independence celebrated with summer exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam Museum

sjr81 — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 14:53:16 +0000

2017 is the UK-India Year of Culture, a year of events to celebrate UK’s cultural ties with India. ̽��ֱ��two exhibitions are part of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums’ India Unboxed series, affiliated to the UK/India 2017 programme run by the British Council.

From Kabul to Kolkata: Highlights of Indian painting in the Fitzwilliam Museum, showcases a selection of Indian miniature paintings and drawings from the 16th to 19th centuries. Works produced under the patronage of the Mughal dynasty and other princely rulers are included, as well as several acquired by early British patrons and collectors in India.

Religious epic and myth, history, royal portraiture, natural history, music and architecture are all included in the themes of the paintings and drawings on show. A new catalogue exploring the themes of the exhibition has been written by Marcus Fraser, Honorary Keeper of Islamic and Indian Manuscripts and Miniatures at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Elephants, Deities and Ashoka’s Pillar: Coins of India from antiquity to the present explores the history of India through coins produced from the 4th century BC until recent times. Cultural, religious, economic and political developments are richly illustrated by the coins on show. They focus on representative periods of India’s history, ending with a display of banknotes and coins produced since India became independent in 1947.

̽��ֱ��exhibitions are accompanied by a full programme of public events, including handling sessions of historic coins, lunchtime talks, art workshops and family events.

̽��ֱ��Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Tim Knox, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum has a significant collection of Indian miniature paintings and drawings, the majority unpublished and little known. Many of these exquisite, finely detailed works are going on display for the first time. Our coin and medal collections are internationally celebrated and we are delighted to join this important year of Indian culture with some of our finest Indian treasures.”

From Kabul to Kolkata: Highlights of Indian painting in the Fitzwilliam Museum is on show until September 3, 2017 in the Shiba Gallery. Elephants, Deities and Ashoka’s Pillar: Coins of India from antiquity to the present is on show until October 1, 2017 in the Octagon Gallery. Entry to the Fitzwilliam Museum is free.

Two exhibitions and a new book have launched the Fitzwilliam Museum's celebration of the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence. ̽��ֱ��displays celebrate Cambridge’s past and present links with Indian culture with examples from the Museum’s world-class holdings of coins and its rarely-seen collection of Indian miniature painting.

Many of these exquisite, finely detailed works are going on display for the first time.

Tim Knox

̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum

Rama returns in victory to Ayodhya, Pahari (Punjab Hills), Kangra, c.1780-1790

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Another India exhibition gives voice to India’s most marginalised communities

sjr81 — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 13:59:14 +0000

Putting on display never-before-seen objects from the Museum’s historic collections, as well as stunning, newly-commissioned works from contemporary Adivasi sculptors, Another India tells the stories behind a remarkable collection of artefacts while confronting head-on the role played by Empire and colonialism in the gathering together of this material. ̽��ֱ��exhibition also features 23 works acquired by its curator Mark Elliott, using a New Collecting Award from Art Fund.

“This is an exhibition about the India – or the many Indias – that most people in the UK don’t know,” said Mark Elliott. “It’s about 100 million people of Indigenous or Adivasi backgrounds who are marginalised by majority populations and the state. It’s an exhibition about identity, diversity and belonging; and the role that objects play in creating a sense of who we are.

“These are issues that affect all of us, particularly now when Identity – who we are, where we come from and where we belong – is being fought over here in Britain. Another important story is how these things came to Cambridge in the first place. Many of the artefacts were acquired through colonialism: sometimes fair exchanges, sometimes gifts, sometimes not. This is about legacies of empire for people in the UK and India.”

Among the objects going on display are a head-hunters skull, pieces of the Taj Mahal and a snake-charmer’s flute. Ten new sculptures, specially commissioned by Elliott after working closely with Adivasi and indigenous artists at workshops across India, will also take pride of place in Another India, thanks to the prestigious New Collecting Award from Art Fund. ̽��ֱ��workshops took place from Gujarat in the west to Nagaland, right on the border with Myanmar (Burma) in the North east.

̽��ֱ��sculptures, the largest of which is 13 feet (3.9m) high and the heaviest of which is almost a tonne, have been shipped from the sub-continent and will sit alongside stunning photographic portraits of Indigenous Indians – from the late 19th century to the 21st. ̽��ֱ��most recent works include photos of Naga men in their 80s and 90s proudly displaying their tattooed faces and bodies.

“We are trying to make this less of a show about dead white guys by living white guys,” added Elliott. “We showed artists across India some of our collections and said ‘here’s the stuff we have from your place, what do you think? What would you make now if we asked you?’ ̽��ֱ��whole brief was to produce new works in response to the collections we have.”

Ruby Hembrom, an Adivasi writer and activist, who has worked closely with Elliott and MAA on the planning of the exhibition, said: “Another India is the only India we Adivasis know. Identity is belonging and we belong to this India. We belong to the objects of this India and belong to the feelings they trigger and emotions they evoke. ̽��ֱ��India that ‘others’ use is the one where we are confronting hatred, racism, sexism, exploitation, brutality, dehumanisation and stereotyping in our everyday lives.

“No matter how much we’ve talked of or engaged in social and political change, very little has changed for us. This is not the India our ancestors sacrificed for, or hoped for us, and this is not the one we want for our descendants.”

Among the historic objects going on display at MAA is a coin necklace from the ‘Criminal Tribes’ settlement in Maharashtra which was collected by Maguerite Milward in 1936. Milward went on expedition to make portrait sculptures of Indigenous and Adivasi men and women. ̽��ֱ��necklaces show how Adivasis whose lives were transformed by colonialism, reappropriated and repurposed coins issued by the British Raj as jewellery, signs of wealth and status.

̽��ֱ��head-taker’s skull meanwhile comes from Nagaland and was worn on the chest by a Konyak warrior who had captured an enemy head. ̽��ֱ��monkey skull, with red, white and black hair woven into the crown, was collected by JH Hutton, Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills and later a Professor of Anthropology at Cambridge, who put it in a glass jar and kept it in his office until he retired.

Headhunting was a popular but ambivalent topic of anthropology in the first half of the 20th century. It was an aspect of Naga culture that the British sought to eradicate but found fascinating, and which despite the coming of Christianity, remains a hugely important part of Naga identity today.

“Another India is talking about a very different India to most people’s expectations in Britain and possibly India too,” said Elliott. “We didn’t want to do a show about Bollywood, saris and curry, but instead highlight a massive body of marginalised people – numbering nearly twice the population of the UK – who to a great extent aren’t seen as having culture, heritage and history of their own.”

Many of the objects going on display – whittled down from the 10,000 plus Indian objects in MAA’s collections – are the product of an extraordinary industry of exploration, survey and classification whose advance started with the East India Company and continued under the Crown until independence in 1947.

By the mid-19th century, scholars and administrators were working through masses of linguistic, economic, ethnographic and criminological data to decode the demography of India, defining groups of people as distinctive on the basis of shared language, customs, religious belief and ‘racial’ characteristics.

By the end of that century, such groupings had been consolidated into a fundamental distinction between ‘castes’ and ‘tribes’. Tribes were identified as groups of people who were separated geographically, socially or both from ‘mainstream’ caste society. Often living in more isolated territories away from large population centres such as hill and forest regions. These groups were defined first as being outside the caste system but furthermore as ethnically or culturally distinct, often being described as ‘primitive’.

While the constitution of India identifies these groups as Scheduled Tribes or ‘Tribal’, this term is widely seen as derogatory with connotations of primitivism, backwardness and even savagery. In truth, all the categories are remarkably slippery. Indigenous, Adivasi and Tribal identities are still fiercely contested.

“ ̽��ֱ��objects on display resist pigeonholing, just as people do,” added Elliott. “ ̽��ֱ��identities presented here are ambiguous and contested. But this is not just an historical exhibition, the artefacts and the stories they tell are the stories of communities who are living, struggling and thriving today.

“Putting together this exhibition has brought me and the museum into contact with extraordinary people: scholars, activists and artists and more – from the tribes, groups and communities that we are incredibly proud to represent here in Cambridge.”

Another India is the centrepiece of the ̽��ֱ��’s wider celebrations entitled India Unboxed. To mark the UK-India Year of Culture 2017, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden, are hosting a shared season on the theme of India with a programme of exhibitions, events, digital encounters, discussions, installations and more within the museums and the city of Cambridge. Rooted in the Cambridge collections, the programme will explore themes of identity and connectivity for audiences in both the UK and India.

For further information, visit the Another India website.

Hundreds of objects which tell the story of 100 million of India’s most marginalised citizens – its Indigenous and Adivasi people – are to go on display for the first time in a ground-breaking exhibition at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) from today.

We didn’t want to do a show about Bollywood, saris and curry, but instead highlight a massive body of marginalised people.

Mark Elliott

A head-hunter's skull from Nagaland which was worn on the chest of a Konyak warrior who had captured an enemy head.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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