New Horizons in Indian Ocean Art, Culture, and Heritage
Panel and Roundtable

PROGRAMME

Introductions by Dr Nancy Um (Getty Research Institute) and moderated by Dr Prita Meier (New York University)

South Asia in Singapore's Museums: Beyond the Patina of Diplomacy and Classicism
Dr Priya Maholay-Jaradi
This talk asks if press photographs (taken from 1959 to 2015) — which project classical Hindu-Buddhist objects as the basis of India-Singapore museum diplomacies — serve as a reliable index to uncover curatorial conceptions of South Asia in Singapore’s museums, such as ACM.

Texts and Contexts: Insights from the Malay World on Indian Ocean Studies
Dr Sher Banu Khan
By comparing texts written in South India and North Sumatra, and by examining the contexts connecting both these regions, this talk reflects on the possibilities of generating new disciplinary, geographical, and cultural perspectives on the study of state-formation and conversion in the early modern period.

Minarets and Indian Ocean Connections: Comparative Perspectives and Interpretation
Dr Imran bin Tajudeen
This talk revisits questions of methodology and interpretation in the study of sixteenth- to early twentieth-century “pre-modern” minarets as identity markers across Java, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula, and considers the significance of their spread across the Indian Ocean region.



^{Images, l-r: Display from ACM’s South Asia Gallery, 2003; Map showing the lands where the Malay language was used (from Thomas Bowrey’s A dictionary English and Malayo, Malayo and English, London, 1701); Al-Aqsha Mosque, Central Java. Photo courtesy of Imran bin Tajudeen.}


This event is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through its Connecting Art Histories initiative. It is also supported by the Department of Malay Studies of the National University of Singapore, Binghamton University (New York), and the Asian Civilisations Museum.