Another India: Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia
- Submitting institution
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University of Cambridge
- Unit of assessment
- 22 - Anthropology and Development Studies
- Output identifier
- 8277
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia This exhibition qualifies for double weighting because it represents the identification, analysis and cross-referencing of a large body of artefacts and archival sources. The research was conducted over three years in Cambridge and India and used multiple methodologies - from ethnographic, archaeological, historical and art-historical approaches - resulting in the generation of a substantial piece of collections research and exhibition development. It is an original critical reflection on curatorial process in the past and present aimed at innovative methodologies to identify, transform and �decolonise� curatorial practice.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Research on ethnographic collections from South Asia at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) revealed artefacts, actors, relationships and histories hitherto concealed or unknown. Through a process of creative and curatorial collaboration these new insights were presented in a major exhibition and monograph that exposed and challenged curatorial processes and that together form this multi-component single output.
Between 2015 and 2017 Elliott surveyed more than 2000 historical artefacts, predominantly from Adivasi, 'tribal' or otherwise marginalised communities in India, and constructed biographies of 200 human actors involved in creating the Cambridge collections: collectors, government officials, makers and previous owners. Many of these actors were previously unidentified, their activities not understood, and their relationships with one another invisible. Artefacts were connected, for the first time, to specific communities and individuals; others had incorrect or anachronistic attributions which were updated.
This research enabled an innovative programme of creative collaborations through workshops with artists and makers from indigenous communities in India (2016-2017), which produced commissioned artworks that responded to legacies of empire and representation in the historic collections, and generated fresh interpretations of artefacts adding complexity to the narratives produced by colonial-era collectors and scholars.
These strands were woven together in a 2017 monograph, distributed in the UK by MAA and in India by Adivaani, and exhibition at MAA. The exhibition received over 65,000 visits between 8 March 2017 and 22 April 2018. It presented 200 historical artefacts from the MAA collections, with images and documents from MAA and museums in the UK and Canada, and 23 new artworks. It traced the role of anthropology and curatorship in reifying race and identity, querying conceptions of 'Indianness', and aimed to reconfigure curatorial practices through critical engagement with forms of classification and representation impacting on museum professionals, scholars, audiences and communities today.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -