News - Sarmaya

Mumbai Unfiltered

Discover the city of Mumbai from these unique and unexpected perspectives brought to you by 20 Instagram handles. From window art to the fishermen’s lives, these photographers will make you appreciate this bustling city in a whole new way.

Queeristan

Activist Pawan Dhall’s new book Out Of Line And Offline: Queer Mobilisations In ’90s Eastern India puts the long struggle for LGBTQ+ rights in India in historical perspective. He highlights how the queer movement in Eastern Indian states like West Bengal, Meghalaya, Odisha helped change the lives of people all over the country.

India’s Forgotten Artists

A new show at the Wallace Collection in London, Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company, curated by historian William Dalrymple showcases 110 paintings that throw light on little known Indian artists of the late 18th and 19th centuries.

Epic Journey

An outstanding new exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases 30 beautiful paintings created between the 17^th and 19^th centuries that narrate the Ramayana across a range of artistic styles. Absolutely unmissable.

What Lies Beneath

Travel back in time at the Bunker Museum at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai, where you can get a taste of military life in the 19^thcentury. The underground bunker, comprising 13 rooms which were used to store ammunition, was discovered in 2016 and has been restored by conservation architect (and Sarmaya speaker) Vikas Dilawari.

Now Hear This

How do you get young people interested in Indian history? (Well for one, get them to follow Sarmaya!) A new podcast, Echoes of India, is employing innovative storytelling (complete with dramatic sound effects) to get history out of the, well, history books and straight into the Millennial imagination.

Hidden Figures

Warli artist Rajesh Wangad harnesses technology to tell a compelling story of loss and the true cost of “progress” through this video, which narrates the history of his tribe and the way they have lived for generations — and how all that is changing.

Private Eye

Legendary photographer Tim Walker’s new exhibition, Wonderful People, is a selection of striking portraits of well-known faces, allowing you to see them in a completely different light and making for a defining moment in contemporary photography.

Big Deals

Among the very high-profile artworks going under the hammer for Sotheby’s auction of 20th-century Indian art from the Guy and Helen Barbier collection is this work by Bhupen Khakhar. ‘Two Men in Benares’ caused a sensation in 1982 for its bold homo-erotic theme and today it’s valued at between Rs 3.9 and 5 crore . Visit ‘What’s New’ for a look at Khakhar’s work in Sarmaya’s collection

Firetrucks & Super Cycles

Objects are imbued with an extraordinary amount of meaning by the humans who pass them from hand to hand, over generations. Part of what makes this list of unusual Indian museums so charming is the variety of their collections—from Rolls Royce firetrucks to historical cycles to vintage packaging—and what they represent to the people who have so carefully preserved them

Think Like A Museum

A heartening news report on how Indian museums are thinking beyond four walls to engage more deeply with their audience, and keep them coming back for more. This includes Instagram-led contests, a museum set inside a mansion and a World War I reenactement. Sarmaya gets a mention here for one of our social media campaigns

Rhythm Of The Earth

We’re loving this addictive song and gorgeous video by the hip-hop collective Swadesi Movement in collaboration with activist and “tribal chieftain of Aarey” Prakash Bhoir. This video is made in support of the ‘Save Aarey’, an effort by environmentalists and citizens to oppose the construction of a metro car-shed in the forested area of Aarey in urban Mumbai.

Buckle up, gang

How do you get more riders to follow the most basic safety rule? Helmet art maybe the answer. Extreme sports athlete Niels Peter Jensen was so disturbed by a road accident he witnessed in India that he’s started an art-activism campaign to get talented Indian and international motor-artists to create jazzed-up helmets that people would be excited to wear.

Dilli ki gully

For the past four years, Lodhi Colony in south Delhi has been at the receiving end of attentions from some great graphic artists and illustrators from all over the world. St+art India Foundation is behind this effort at putting art where everyone can see and enjoy it, ie on the outside. Huge colourful murals by artists like Sam Kulavoor, Shiloh Shiv Suleiman and Sajid Wajid cover over 20 walls in this historic neighbourhood, making it India’s first official art district.

Indian in Venice

After a gap of eight years, India will return to the Venice Biennale thanks to efforts by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts, the task force for the Arts of the Confederation of Indian Industry, and the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Seven artists will be shown at the India Pavilion and among them is Shakuntala Kulkarni, whose works were recently acquired by Sarmaya—visit our What’s New section for a closer look.

A Night At The Museum

AirBnB and the Louvre are partnering to mark the 30th anniversary of the museum’s glass pyramid, a controversial-but-now-iconic structure that sharply polarised Parisians and art-lovers when it was first unveiled. AirBnB is offering some exclusive events and intimate gigs inside the museum so guests to experience its grandeur up close and personal—and after closing hours. One lucky (lucky, lucky) winner also gets to spend a night at the Louvre. Read more here

Winter is here

We couldn’t resist. As The Game of Thrones returned for its final season, millions of people around the world tuned in to watch — and then spoil it for everyone else. To celebrate the return to the Seven Kingdoms, we’re loving these Westeros-appropriate antiquities and mysterious oddities. And remember, that which is dead may never die.

Garden of Tears

A collective inherited trauma and the memory of an act so heinous that its very mention roils the stomach. The pain of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre lives on in all of us, and to mark its centenary and make sure the world will never forget, the IGNCA in Delhi has opened an exhibition that is on till April 28^th, featuring documentary materials, eyewitness accounts, photographs and even a replica whipping post like those used by the British for public floggings. Shows are also on at the Manchester Museum and London’s Nehru Centre in the UK.

What is art?

“I would say that in India, we have not been able to understand old practices – like a human embracing a tree, composing songs, making terracotta figurines offered to the gods. People in the mainstream will say it is madness. But I feel that a large part of our heritage exists in ordinary people whom we consider backward or uneducated.”

A moving interview with the late Haku Shah, a painter, scholar and Gandhian who saw art in India’s living heritage, and a brilliant voice we lost last month.