Dr Kavita Singh

Dr Kavita Singh

A complex history: collections of Indian art at the V&A

Research Scholar, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage

Of the grants awarded to me, the one that most deeply affected me , was the NTICVA Visiting Fellowship which I was awarded soon after completing my PhD when I was looking for a new area of study and had become interested in the field of new new museology. This deconstructive approach applies insights of the new anthropology to the field of museology, examining the ways in which museums have become influential institutions in the modern world, as custodians and interpreters of the artefacts of the past. I knew about the historic significance of the V&A's Indian collection, and was aware of the lineage of distinguished and influential Keepers who had nurtured it. I was given unstinting support and complete grant of access at the V&A, with its superb records, its warmly welcoming staff. I have not experienced such a congenial and nurturing atmosphere for research. I returned with a great deal of very interesting material which I was not able to publish immediately. I received an internship, a hands-on, practical museum-work internship, at the Asia Society in New York, and this led to a series of projects with a wonderful collection of miniature paintings at the San Diego Museum of Art. I was able to give a paper from this material at a conference organised by EHESS in Paris in February 2001, and to repeat this presentation in Delhi and the UK subsequently. The award was crucial in enabling me to do this work; its ultimate impact on my career will be clear when the book is published. In the meanwhile the circle of friends I made at the V&A led to other projects, and other directions. Contact with Sue Stronge, then working on the Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms exhibition (1997) resulted in my writing up material on murals in the Punjab for a conference that accompanied the show, editing a book on Sikh art with special focus on community identity issues, and contact with a foundation through which an exhibition project materialised. When I was interviewed for the UK Visiting Fellowship, the Trustees were keen that I undertook practical museum work. Although I was not able to do much in that direction at the V&A, my subsequent internship at the Asia Society and experience at the San Diego Museum of Art, and work on a larger travelling show from the San Diego Binney collection, gave me rich experience.