Art, Anticolonial Activism and the Struggle for Independence in South Asia
Exploring South Asian modernisms born amid anti-colonial struggles, this lesson traces how artists from the Bengal School to Santiniketan redefined aesthetics, weaving freedom, identity, and cultural renewal into a shared visual language of resistance.
The lecture analyzes the artistic movements and practices that developed in South Asia in parallel with and in dialogue with the struggles for independence from British colonial rule, highlighting how the visual, literary, and performing arts reflected and shaped aspirations for freedom and social change. Starting with the Bengal School, we discuss how artists such as Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose revitalized local traditions by responding to European academic conventions, giving rise to a modernism rooted in cultural specificity. The lecture also explores the experiments promoted by artists such as Rabindranath Tagore, Benode Behari Mukherjee, and Ramkinkar Baij in Santiniketan, which combined visual arts, literature, philosophy, and pedagogy. Figures such as Amrita Sher-Gil, Nirode Mazumdar, and the Calcutta Group will be discussed, with a brief mention of a selection of artists from the region that would become Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose reinterpretations of local narratives and visual languages sought to assert cultural autonomy and challenge colonial aesthetics.
January 21, 2026 - from 6 PM to 8 PM CET.
