www.vam.ac.uk/indiafestival | #vamIndiaFestival
This autumn the Victoria and Albert Museum will present a series of exhibitions, displays, events and digital initiatives that will explore the rich and varied culture of South Asia, both past and present. The India Festival will mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Museum’s Nehru Gallery, which displays some of the most important objects from the V&A’s South Asian art collection produced between the 16th and 19th centuries. It is also 25 years since the launch of the Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections (NTICVA), which encourages the study, preservation and display of India’s art and cultural heritage.
The V&A has one of the greatest collections of South Asian art in the world, and is particularly renowned for its Mughal court arts, textiles, paintings and sculpture. The Nehru Gallery was opened in November 1990 to give an evocative setting to the Museum’s important collection. Highlights include Tipu’s Tiger, a life-sized carved and painted wood model seen in the act of devouring a prostrate European figure, the golden throne created for Maharaja Ranjit Singh, a wine cup made of white nephrite jade for the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, Mughal paintings dating to the late 16th and early 17th centuries, stunning examples of textiles and dress, and a 19th-century jewelled sword belonging to Maharaja Holkar decorated with diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
Coinciding with the opening of the Nehru Gallery at the V&A in London, the Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections (NTICVA) was set up in India. Central to its foundation was the V&A’s ambition to make its collections and those of other UK institutions more accessible to scholars from India, and to support the development of scholarship on Indian art and culture more generally. For the past 25 years the NTICVA has enabled scholars and professionals from India and the UK to develop and share skills and gain access to cultural resources in both countries. These aims are met primarily through administrating grants and offering a range of awards, from three month fellowships to be held in the UK to projects for fieldwork in India. The Trust has awarded nearly 500 awards in total. It has created a vital network of linkages between scholars and professionals in the two countries, with many alumni now in senior academic, museum and conservation positions in India and the UK.
Ambassador Ajai Malhotra IFS (Retd.), newly appointed Chairman of the Nehru Trust, said: “Over the past quarter century The Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the V&A, working closely with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and a wide range of other organisations in India and the UK, has contributed significantly to the development of professional skills and scholarship in museology and conservation in India. The NTICVA will even more actively promote interest in India’s vast and magnificent art and cultural heritage in the years ahead. Through our annual awards and other initiatives we will also focus on increasing awareness about the value of museums and the importance of conservation efforts.”
The V&A also maintains active partnerships with many institutions in India and recent years have seen a varied programme of exhibitions touring to the country. In 2010 the V&A, together with the British Library and British Museum, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Museum of India, acting on behalf of the Ministry of Culture in India, which outlined our continuing commitment to exchanges of staff and the provision of professional advice.
Rob Lynes, Director British Council India said: “The British Council is pleased to be supporting the V&A to launch their India Festival. We look forward to supporting collaborations between UK and India arts organisations under our Re-imagine Arts programme, which focuses on collaborative projects between artists and organisations from both countries and helps build stronger cultural relations between the peoples of the two countries.”
Highlights of the V&A’s 2015 India Festival
· The Fabric of India (3 October 2015 – 10 January 2016), the highlight of the India Festival, this will be the first major exhibition to explore the incomparably rich world of handmade textiles from India. On display will be around 200 objects that illustrate the skills, variety and adaptability of Indian textile makers, including previously unseen treasures, ranging from the earliest known Indian textile fragments to contemporary fashion. The exhibition will be complemented by an international conference on Indian textiles.
· Major exhibition Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection (21 November 2015 – 28 March 2016) will present around 100 spectacular objects drawn from a single private collection. It showcases jewellery and jewelled objects made in, or inspired by, India from the 17th century to the present day.
· Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1854-1860 (24 June – 11 October 2015), a display of some of the earliest and most striking views of the landscape and architecture of India and Burma, by a pioneering British photographer. This exhibition is a collaboration between the V&A, who acquired Tripe’s works in the 1860s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
· A display of Warli Paintings at the V&A Museum of Childhood, a tribal artform originating from the Thane region, north of Mumbai, which has had little exposure in the West. Developed in collaboration with A Fine Line.
· A digital exhibition, created in partnership with Darbar, a South Asian classical music organisation, and the Horniman Museum in London, of 19th-century musical instruments from the V&A’s collection juxtaposed with footage of leading contemporary musicians playing similar instruments of more modern date, enriched by interviews with the musicians and other experts. A number of the 19th-century instruments will also be installed within the Nehru Gallery, complimented by live performances in the Museum.
· A broad and varied programme of debates and lectures, including the annual Benjamin Zucker lecture on Mughal Art.
· A lively programme of educational events for adults, children and families comprising talks, performances, courses, screenings, storytelling and special events. A cultural festival focussed around Diwali is planned for October half term (24 October – 1 November).
· The festival will also mark the culmination of an online cataloguing project, funded by the Parasol Foundation Trust, which has resulted in full catalogue entries and new photography of 8,500 paintings, textiles and hardstones being available on the V&A’s Search the Collections database: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/