Imagining the East Indies

First aired on 16 January 2020 as part of our HistoriaSG lecture series
Daniel Tham
Curatorial Lead, National Museum of Singapore

The idea of the “East Indies” was a largely European construct, shaped by the European exploration of and commercial interest in Southeast Asia. This gave rise to the charting and imaging of the region and its peoples, with the resulting images of the East Indies disseminated and popularised through print.

This talk by Daniel Tham explores some of the artwork currently on display in the special exhibition An Old New World: From the East Indies to the Founding of Singapore, 1600s−1819, and demonstrates how these images reveal, more than anything, the European imagination of the East Indies.