Indian Ocean Art Histories: Goa; Bombay; Kochi

The 2019 Judith Stronach Travel Seminar focused on the Indian Ocean, the third largest water body and the world’s oldest cultural continuum that has facilitated the mobility of people, objects, and ideas over millennia. Students in the seminar mapped the ways in which such oceanic networks also shaped the global history of art from the early modern period to the contemporary by focusing on three key moments in this longue durée history: Goa in the early modern period, Bombay (now Mumbai) under British rule, and the contemporary in Kochi via the 2018 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. In this day-long public symposium, participants of the seminar will present their research papers. The Travel Seminar was made possible due to a generous gift to the Department of History of Art from the Estate of Judith Lee Stronach.

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

Oceanic Art Histories: A Brief Introduction, 11:00-11:15am
• Indian Ocean Art Histories, Sugata Ray
• Notes From the Field, Diliana Angelova

Networks of Circulation, 11:15-12:45pm
• Rethinking East Asia in the Indian Ocean World: Tsukijihonganji Temple and Indo-Saracenic Style Architecture across the Japanese Empire, Andrea Jung-An Liu
• Eco Art Deco: Maritime Modernisms of Bombay and Beyond, Riad Kherdeen
• The ‘Free-floating’ Srinagar Biennale: Kashmir’s Distant Traumas Transported, Melissa Carlson

Lunch, 12:45-1:45pm

Considering Material, 1:45-3:15pm
• Bom Jesus: Questions Concerning Style in Goan Church Architecture, Joseph Albanese
• Pierced Bodies: Ivory and Wood Figures in Kochi and Goa, Ramón De Santiago
• Material Matrix: The Trans-Oceanic and Geological Construction of the Victoria Terminus, Joel Thielen

Break, 3:15-3:30pm

Art Histories from Below, 3:30-5:00pm
• Forgotten Crosses: Material Evidence of a Medieval Indian Ocean Christianity, Ariana Pemberton
• Sanskritizing the Vernacular Aesthetic: Re-contextualizing Betal and other Goan folk deities through the lens of Vedic Orthodoxies, Alex Ciolac
• Problems and Possibilities of “Resistance:” Positioning the 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Katherine Bruhn

Wine Reception, 5:00pm