Stream - Sarmaya

Reeling them in – How Tamil cinema shaped politics

Thanjavur – Country of Gods & Kings

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Thanjavur welcomed large communities of Telugu and Marathi speakers as a consequence of Nayaka and Maratha conquests in Cholamandalam. The result was a slow mingling and simmering of cultural influences, resulting in the unique artistic heritage of this temple town

Postcards from Madras

Postcards began at the end of the 19th century as a new kind of crossover between photography and the popular print market. In a collaboration with Picture Postcard Empire, we bring you a virtual exhibition of intriguing postcards from the city of Madras

Pondicherry Dreaming – Inside French India

How native Tamil and colonial French influences come together in the charming melting pot of Puducherry

The Curious Case of Chennai’s Elleesan & the Dravidian proof

Madras Talkies

In 1639, a British trading company got permission from the local rulers to set up a factory on a thin strip of the Coromandel coast. Measuring about three square miles and lashed by the fury of the Bay of Bengal, Madraspatnam gave no early signs of the historic metropolis it would soon morph into

Madras Chic: Textiles and jewels of Tamil Nadu

Temple jewellery, Kanjeevaram silks, pure cotton lace and the ever-chic Madras check—come with us on a style journey through the Madras Presidency

Remembering Cholamandalam – The cultural legacy of the Cholas

The imperial Cholas patronised all manner of visual, literary, architectural and textile arts, in essence imprinting their larger-than-life personalities on every realm that they touched

Divine Doorways – Gopurams of South India

Exploring the towering gopurams of south India through rare photographs of temples across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala

The Making of Madras

The history of the Madras Presidency is also the history of an embryonic nation finding its identity under colonial rule. We take you through some key moments, movements and personalities that shaped Madras and what would in time become India

Name, Place, Animal, Wings!- Virtual Workshop

Artist Shailee Mehta conducted a fun virtual workshop for children ages 9 to 14 inspired by the themes of Sarmaya’s Mumbai show, ‘Shifting Selves’

reimagine II

Inside the studios and minds of seven contemporary artists who have interpreted and re-imagined objects from our collection to tell us stories in their unique styles

Trails & Tales

Early Indian Maps

Drawing Lines – Early maps of India

Collector’s Edition: Paul Abraham on ‘People of India’

Paul Abraham introduces us to a rare 19th-century album of ethnographic photographs, a gem from the Sarmaya collection

Whose land is it anyway?

We examine the themes presented in Saju Kunhan’s work as they are represented in our collection of rare 19th-century portraits, war photography, engravings, contemporary art and Warli painting

Zarina Hashmi and the idea of home

Witness to the horrors of Partition as a child, Zarina dedicated her decades-long career to exploring the idea of home and belonging, and the lingering pain of displacement

Reading between the lines

From medieval coins to colonial-era photography, we bring a diverse array of objects from our collection that reinforce the arguments made by Saubiya Chasmawala’s art