This week at MAP

W A L K T H R O U G H

Walkthrough by Parul Singh

A curated walkthrough of Book of Gold: The Kanchana Chitra Ramayana by Parul Singh

Saturday, 16th September, 11:00 AM (IST)

AXIS Bank Gallery & Citi Gallery, Third Floor, Museum of Art & Photography

Step into the world of Book of Gold: The Kanchana Chitra Ramayana of Banaras?with the co-curator, Parul Singh, as your guide. Join us for an engaging and interactive walkthrough as Parul Singh, a 4A_Lab Postdoctoral Fellow at KHI, Florence – Max Planck Institute, and SPK, Berlin, unveils the mesmerizing universe of the Golden Illustrated Ramayana.

Parul Singh will unpack the detailed scenes and lesser known stories behind the characters depicted in the folio, but also tell us more about the making of the manuscript and the different schools and therefore styles that came together at a moment in time when the miniature painting tradition was fading.

This is a unique opportunity to hear from the co-curtorator of the exhibition, and we'd be delighted if you join us for this special walkthrough.

Register here

ART SPARKS

The ninth and latest season of Art Sparks explores innovation, imagination and design, where young art explorers from the Museum Of Solutions (MuSo) relook at artworks from the MAP collection to design unique prototypes for a new user. This episode features Manas who works with an old?bread toaster from the MAP collection to turn it into not just a toaster but also helps make eggs and spreading jam and butter on your toast with a little help from Aeshwarya from MuSo, Mumbai.? This season of Art Sparks is in collaboration with?Museum of Solutions (MuSo), Mumbai.

Watch here

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Curated by the late Kavita Singh and Parul Singh, this exhibition shows how spirited the Indian painting tradition was, well into the nineteenth century. Challenging the older art historical narratives that miniature painting in northern India had faded by this time, is the story of a most ambitious illustrated manuscript made for the royal court of Banaras. Spanning from 1796 to 1814, over a period of eighteen years, several artists belonging to different schools converged to work on the manuscript of Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas totalling about 548 paintings. The book was known locally as the Kanchana Chitra Ramayana – the Golden Illustrated Ramayana.

For the first time, this exhibition brings together nearly eighty pages from the manuscript. Through exploring the historical context in which it was made, it showcases the diversity of artists involved, and the ingenuity of the narratives they devised for this monumental artistic endeavour. Book of Gold: The Kanchana Chitra Ramayana of Banaras?will open on September 16, 2023.

Coming Soon

We're excited to announce the opening of?Inheritance, that brings together the work of 6 young people in Bengaluru and 7 in Glasgow, exploring shared histories, memories and identities between South Asia and the UK.This exhibition is the outcome of an international collaboration between MAP,?Glasgow Life Museums,?Street Level Photoworks?and?Kanike, as part of the British Council's?Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH)?programme.In a project that ran from March to September 2023, participants in both cities went through a series of training activities and discussions, including online talks and in-person photography workshops, and were guided to the production of their own exhibition.The works in this exhibition include a diversity of approaches from portraiture and staged photography to documentary, in order to interrogate how identities are constructed and reconstructed, perceived and imagined, contested and embraced. They explore themes of family and cultural history, migration, place, class, gender identity, conventions of social life and notions of community.The participants in Bengaluru are: Nidhi Bhandari, Aryan Gulati, Ganesh B V, Sacheth N, Tanvi Mallapur, Pragyna Divakar. In Glasgow are Chrislyn Naysha Pereira, Amina Bashir, Zainab Ashraf, Zianib Nisa Ahmad, Roshni Advani, Malini Chakrabarty, Zain Saleem.

Inheritance?opens at Kanike and MAP on September 22, 2023.Its sister exhibition is currently on view in Glasgow until October 13, 2023.?

MAP ACADEMY

"Recognisable through its characteristic black colour and minimalist design, Longpi pottery is an indigenous craft practised in the district of Ukhrul, Manipur in Northeast India. Made without using the potter’s wheel, the craft is traditionally a domain of the men of the Tangkhul Naga community, although women are not prohibited from practising it. Locally called Longpi ham or hampai, it derives its name from the villages of Longpi Khullen and Longpi Kajui, which yield the material used in its making. Longpi pottery traditionally comprised cookware, but now also includes storage and serving vessels for food and beverages." In this?article, published in The Print,??MAP Academy?explores?the work of initiatives like Mathew Sasa Craft and the Ministry of Minority Affairs' USTTAD that are striving to preserve Manipur's age-old Longpi pottery craft.?

Read here