Shamsia Hassani, What about the Dead Fish?, 2011, Afghanistan. MOA Collection: 3280/2
This interdisciplinary cluster seeks to complicate the imaginaries, framing and display of “South Asia.” It aims to explore entangled histories, connections and flows through images, especially art, film, photography and the South Asia collection at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC (MOA). More importantly, this cluster delves into how museum collections can be activated and reimagined by shifting traditional narratives and partaking in alternative forms of knowledge-making by activating MOA’s under-explored South Asia collection.
Museum objects from South Asia carry a fraught colonial history. Tracing Flows engages with the question of how these objects are transformed upon arrival on unceded lands. By foregrounding the responses by South Asian artists, knowledge holders, and community members to the collection, the project not only traces these movements but repositions the museum as a site of ongoing dialogue where the objects continue to accumulate new meanings. In addition, this collaborative initiative will help update and enrich the information about South Asian belongings on the public facing museum online collection. The cluster will also contribute to examining the impacts of colonialism to inform engagements with cultures and histories.
Bringing together artists, curators, researchers, students, and community members, it fosters public engagement through workshops and programming that centre diverse South Asian voices, and inform future museum initiatives. In a time of heightened geopolitical tensions in the region, this cluster seeks to promote a richer understanding of South Asia by collaborating with community members to reflect on connections and shared histories.
Supported by the UBC Public Humanities Hub.