Glynn Vivian Museum, Swansea, UK
Nov 2018 – 2025

PAUL MELLON CURATORIAL RESEARCH FELLOW

Glynn Vivian was the recipient of the hugely prestigious Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art Curatorial Research Grant for 2021/22, enabling it to create this post for the Imperial Subjects: (Post)Colonial Conversations between South Asia & Britain project, which is part of the museum’s drive to “decolonize” its collection. The project involves several separate events and curatorial ventures, including:

TIGERS & DRAGONS: INDIA & WALES in Britain

Co-curated, with Katy Freer, Head of Exhibitions at Glynn Vivian, an exhibition directly related to the Imperial Subjects project, Tigers & Dragons: India and Wales in Britain (23 May – 2 November 2025) explores the iconography of South Asian nations and Wales; examining how they have imagined themselves—or been imagined—over the centuries.

If India was the Jewel in the Imperial Crown, could we argue that Wales was England’s first colony? As Wales struggles for its identity within ‘British-ness’, it is timely to re-assess the way it contributed to, benefited from and, even, suffered for Britain’s Imperial ambitions. The show investigates the British Empire’s legacy and its continuing relevance for Welsh identity as well as for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The exhibition traces the social and political complexities of the India-Wales relationship. Highlighting Imperial connections (through war, trade and language), it also probes other equivalences. If Wales is England’s Internal Colony, as India was once an External one, what can we learn from comparing the two? The exhibition considers the visual symbolism of both Imperial subjugation (the Indian Tiger dominated by the Lion of Britannia; the Red Welsh Dragon pitted against the White Dragon of England) and national awakening. Just as Indian independence movements were inspired by ideas of Mother India, similarly Welsh nationalism clings to the skirts of Mother Wales. New commissions by contemporary artists (such as Goa-based performance artist Nikhil Chopra) have been supported by CELF (national contemporary art gallery for Wales).

• Bloomberg App
• The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion Lecture
• TV Overview
• Book (Amazon link)
• Audio Tour of Tigers & Dragons 
• Virtual Tour of Tigers & Dragons
• Tigers & Dragons Podcast: Conversation with Victoria Bates (University of Bristol)

ART & Industry stories from south wales

• Guest Curating the exhibition, Art & Industry: Stories from South Wales (7 April – 11 July 2022). Drawing predominantly from the permanent art collection of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery as well as archival material from Swansea Council’s West Glamorgan Archive Service and Swansea Museum, the exhibition was one of the first to examine the region’s art and industrial heritage through the ‘big’ names of Welsh art history. It also presents a unique opportunity for local communities to share their own memories and involvement with the Welsh industrial landscape via workshops, lectures and talks. The latter will intersect with the British Council’s India-Wales collaborative venture, Connections Through Culture, which consists of a series of online ZOOM panels and a website with the Science Gallery, Bangalore, and the Museum Society of Mumbai.

Curatorial Note & Catalogue for Art & Industry

Curator’s Talk & Walkthrough

ART & INDUSTRY: CONNECTIONS THROUGH CULTURE

The product of the Connections Through Culture India-Wales Grant 2021/2022, this collaboration between the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; the Science Gallery Bengaluru; the Museum Society of Mumbai (under the stewardship of Pheroza Godrej) and myself was awarded a grant from British Council Wales for a project exploring Art & Industry in India and Wales. Industrial connections between India and Wales stretch from the imperial era to the present day. The initiative probed these enmeshed histories and contemporary concerns through interdisciplinary digital events bringing together curators, (art) historians, scientists and economists from India and Wales. The initiative included the creation of a permanent website.

Connections Through Culture
Art & Industry Website
Zoom Panel

Raqib Shaw’s US Museum Tour
July 2022 – March 2025

GUEST CURATOR

Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West was co-organized by the Frist Art Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and myself. The show takes its title from Rudyard Kipling’s 1887 Ballad of East and West. The so-called ‘Poet of Empire’ is usually remembered for proclaiming of the East and West that “Never the Twain Shall Meet”. But, Shaw proposes the opposite. In this exhibition of dreamlike self-portraits, East and West ‘meet’ in art to remarkable effect. Accompanied by a comprehensive publication with a substantial curatorial essay, Shaw’s first major presentation in the US will travel to four venues across the country between 2023 to 2025:

Exhibition Tour:

• Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN: September 15–December 31, 2023
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA: February 15–May 12, 2024
• The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX: June 9–September 2, 2024
• The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA: November 15, 2024–March 3, 2025

First Art Museum Article
Curatorial Lecture
Book
Gallery Guide
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Wall-text
E-Flux announcement

ROYAL WEST OF ENGLAND ACADEMY, BRISTOL, UK
Feb – Aug 2024

Co-curated with Dr Elizabeth Robles

Rasheed Araeen: Conscious Forms (25 May – 11 August 2024) celebrated the pioneering work of the veteran, London-based Pakistani artist. Araeen’s first show in Bristol, it invited audiences to engage with his bold, innovative creations, re-telling the story of this vital figure in British Modernism. Conscious Forms went beyond highlighting Araeen’s artistic achievements; critically examining the political context surrounding the development of Araeen’s artistic language, demonstrating how aesthetics and social critique have always been inextricably linked in his work. The show encompassed Araeen’s delicate semi-abstract paintings of boats from the 1950s and 1960s (made in Karachi), his politically charged photomontages from the 1970s and 1980s and his more recent geometric wall-pieces, including an array of Araeen’s gem-hued, abstract sculptures in the RWA’s daylit galleries. By shedding light on the biases inherent in Euro-American art history and Britain’s identity politics, Araeen’s work prompts a re-evaluation of established narratives around ‘inclusivity’, at a moment when these discussions rage in the public sphere.

• Associated Performance on Bristol Docks, Bristol-Chakras, 2024, 21 July 2024, 11-11.45am
• ATRA Article Website
• Press Release

Grosvenor Gallery, London, UK
10 Sept 2021 – 1 OCT 2021

Guest Curator

Patterns of the Past: Weaving Heritage in ‘Pakistani’ Art was a group show comprising 5 artists: Adeela Suleman, Bushra Waqas Khan, David Chalmers Alesworth, Liaqat Rasul and Ruby Chishti. The show was part of an annual collaboration between London’s Grosvenor Gallery and Karachi’s Canvas Gallery, which ran from 10 September to 1 October 2021. It brought together specially commissioned artworks (tapestries, wall hangings, fabric installations, soft sculptures and mobiles) all of which used textiles to unravel conventional notions of art, heritage, nation and identity. It is a sad truth that the most precious textiles in the Subcontinent have been produced in what are now conflict-torn regions: for instance, muslin from the Myanmar-Bengal borderlands, from which countless Rohingya refugees continue to be displaced, or Jamawar shawls from the battleground that is Kashmir. And yet, textiles have had another, kinder, history too: the fabled Silk Route allowed for syncretic exchanges between the Western world and the various Asias, even as fabulous handwoven carpets journeyed along it from Samarkand and ancient Iran. Much more recently, fibre-art and ‘weaving’ have played a vital role in re-drawing the boundaries between art and craft; used by many an artist to unravel gender biases and cultural pigeonholing. The artists in this show were invited to draw on these variegated legacies; to trace how the history of South Asian textiles is tied to politics, culture, identity – and the British Empire. This show – and the especially ‘tailored’ works within it – aimed to dismantle inter/national stereotypes about ‘Pakistani art’. It received international coverage from publications such as The Wick, ART India, Dawn, The Karachi Collective and The Aleph Review.
See Overview

E-Catalogue

BEN URI MUSEUM & GALLERY, LONDON, UK
AUG 2020 – OCT 2020

Academic Advisor 

Midnight’s Family: 70 Years of Indian Artists in Britain was a mega-group exhibition comprising 3 generations of Indian artists in the UK. Curated by Rachel Dickson and artist Shanti Panchal, I advised on the project and provided the framing text for the show. Midnight’s Family marked the launch of Ben Uri’s 3D Virtual Museum, garnering international coverage; including mentions in BBC London, The Guardian Guide, Art Daily as well as reviews and previews in publications all over the Subcontinent.

See