The world of art, museums, heritage and culture
If you haven’t booked tickets to Goa for the Serendipity Arts Festival, do it now! This year’s programme will be spread out over the vibrant city of Panaji and offer shows and performances of theatre, photography, music, dance, craft and the intriguingly titled ‘culinary arts’. Go to Serendipityartsfestival.com to register
Three major Indian art forms—Warli, Mithila and Gond—are being showcased at the travelling exhibition ‘Many Visions, Many Versions’, which has covered various locations across America in 2018-19. The show is curated by Aurogeeta Das and David Szanton and is currently at the Weisman Art Museum in Minnesota till 6 January, 2019. It includes the works of such artists as Jangarh Singh Shyam, Sita Devi and Jivya Soma Mashe. To browse Sarmaya’s collection of folk and indigenous art, click here.
A delightful peek into book-binding technology from the 16th and 17th centuries that let you open one book in up to six different ways! The featured book is from the National Library of Sweden and it’s a stunner in more ways than one. Find a close-up below and for more pics, click here
Twitter is the site of some crazy and wonderful historical discoveries and we found two such beauties recently. One was this hilarious thread tweeted by The Museum of English Rural Life about some doodles found in the margins of a mathematics notebook. The second was an eye-popping archeological find by medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris—the world’s earliest prosthetic eye once worn by a 6-foot-tall priestess
A superbly spooky exhibit on magic through the centuries opens this August at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, University of Oxford. Objects on display include crystal balls and human hearts–read more here
If you’re in Manipal this September, a guided monsoon walk through this open-air museum should be on your list. Hasta Shilpa Heritage Village is dotted with centuries-old mansions and bungalows painstakingly restored to their original glory
“They call him the father of Indian photography. I call him my father.” Read Nandini Ramnath’s review of a documentary on the iconic Raghu Rai, directed by his daughter, Avani Rai
Now that rockstar sci-fi novelist and Twitter darling, Neil Gaiman, has confirmed his presence at next year’s Jaipur Literature Festival, it’s time to re-read his greatest hits. Also, we recommend this oldie-but-goodie: a 2013 lecture by the author on the importance of libraries, reading and daydreaming
Are you following the intelligent new digital mag of Indian style, Voice of Fashion? We loved their well-researched and stunning narrative of the history behind the Manipuri ceremonial sarong or phanek
You can touch, make and even ingest the art inside this insanely gorgeous new digital museum. Read about it here
