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| Past Events Events SACHI Celebrates 15 years
A Film by Sankalp Meshram This program is co-sponsored by SACHI and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India invites you to Home of Anna Spudich, 3035 Country Club Court, Palo Alto, CA 94304 RSVP required, info@sachi.org; 510.583.1403; limited seating; Admission Free
Seventy-five years ago Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala created history when he unveiled the renowned Patiala Necklace inside a Cartier showroom in Paris for the first time. Now his granddaughter unveils Manjusha, a line of jewelry inspired by the beauty of royal designs. Jyotsna Singh has inherited her grandfather’s passion for jewelry. Her love for stones and inventive approach characterize Jyotsna’s collection of fusion jewelry. She combines the use of semi-precious stones like amethyst, ruby, emerald with "Kundan” or “Jadau”, blending ethnic designs with very contemporary styling. Join SACHI friends and Bay Area jewelry designer Jyotsna Singh over tea to discuss how her royal lineage led her to jewelry design. A small selection of Manjusha jewels will be on display. Asian Art Museum celebrates the Royal Family of Travancore Free after museum admission
Her Highness Princess Gouri Parvathi Bayi of the Travancore Royal Family will introduce the history of her family–an illustrious dynasty that governed, using a sacred concept of trusteeship, one of the most progressive princely states of pre-Independence India. She will give a first-hand account of the impact of this thoughtful royal family and how they address the continuity of tradition with the changing role of royals in present-day India. Her Highness is the niece of the late Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Bala Rama Varma and the current Maharaja, 90-year old Sri Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma. The Travancore family descends through the female line. Her Highness will share the history of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Hindu Temple with close associations to the royal family and recently much in the news as India’s “wealthiest temple.” She will also talk about the Padmanabhapuram Palace, a beautiful 450 year monument that was renovated by Maharaja Marthanda Varma in the 1750s, and other palaces associated with her family. Arun Kumar, a Travancorean and Bay Area resident of thirty years, will serve as moderator. Kumar, a senior partner with KPMG LLP, is the author of Plain Truths, a book of poetry. SACHI and the Asian Art Museum present an evening of courtly splendor:
$75 per person, prority seating SOLD OUT Re-live the splendour of the Nawabs in a unique concert of Thumri & Kathak, tracing the hand in hand journey of two great art forms through time. Thumri, a light vocal classical music genre in North India, popularly ascribed to the 19th century court of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Lucknow, arose as a song accompaniment to Kathak dance. Kathak, one of the 8 major classical dance forms of India, is the art of storytelling in dance. It originated as religious storytelling in the temples of India and later gained prominence in the princely courts in mid-19th century. About the Artists: SACHI extends special thanks and appreciation to the following sponsors: Betty & Bruce Alberts, Neaera & Ed Baer, Sheila & Ketan Kothari, Shivi Singh & Prithvi Legha, Vinati Mishra, Gita & Ashok Vaish, and Meena Vashee.Enjoy a day of festivities at the SACHI Annual Event at the Asian Art Museum SACHI and the Asian Art Museum invite you to join a celebration of India
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Hullabaloo over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures |
Merchant Ivory's India |
Hullabaloo over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1978)
Run time: 85 minutes (cover image)
Victor Bannerjee plays a young Maharaja named George, while Aparna Sen portrays his sister, Bonnie. Brother and sister are the proud possessors of a priceless collection of miniature paintings, which makes them the target of every critic, appraiser, and huckster in the art world. Lady Gee (Peggy Ashcroft) is a museum curator–part of a group that descends upon a palace in India for a valuable collection of paintings. Merchant Ivory production
Autobiography of a Princess (1975)
Run time: 59 minutes
Indian princess Madhur Jaffrey divorced and living in self-enforced exile in London invites family friend James Mason to an annual tea party and persuades him to write a biography of her father. The two watch footage of Royal India, and the king's privileged lifestyle only convinces the Englishman to write about those who struggled amid poverty.
Merchant Ivory production
Merchant Ivory Film Productions:
American director James Ivory (born 1928) enjoyed a successful partnership with Indian producer Ismail Merchant, in their independent film company, Merchant Ivory Productions. James Ivory's fascination with exotic places led him to India, where he teamed up with Ismail Merchant, and German-born writer, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The trio's first films were set in India. Concerned with questions of cultural interplay and identity, "The trio express the difficulty of connecting through a number of metaphors: past/present, Hindu/Muslim, England/India, America/Europe, homosexual/heterosexual, man/woman", noted film critic Jeffrey Gantz. Since 1961 Ivory, Merchant, and Jhabvala collaborated on more than 20 movies and television productions in India, the US and Europe. The films of Merchant Ivory Productions have evolved into a genre of their own.
About the Speaker:
Nalini Ghuman is Associate Professor of Music and an Asian Studies scholar at Mills College. She recently inaugurated a special one of a kind course on the music of India. An authority on British music and imperialism during the Raj, Dr. Ghuman publishes and presents her research internationally, including programs on BBC Radio and essays for Western Music and Race (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and for Elgar and His World (Princeton University Press, 2007). Her most recent book is titled, Resonances of the Raj: India in the English Musical Imagination, 1897-1947. Dr. Ghuman graduated from Oxford University and King's College, London, completing her PhD at University of California, Berkeley in musicology and ethnomusicology. In 2004 she co-directed a fully staged performance of Gustav Holst's chamber opera Savitri at Mills College.
SACHI Annual Event sponsors: Louise Russell, Mary-Ann Milford-Lutzker and SOAS, University of London 
IN CONVERSATION WITH CONTEMPORARY ARTIST SANJAY PATEL
SACHI, Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India, invites Members and Friends to join an unforgettable afternoon at the Asian Art Museum with creative artist Sanjay Patel. His imagery, inspired by Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts, enlivens the exhibition on view at the Asian Art Museum. Patel will also unveil a magical kingdom of mythic Indian characters in a show called Deities, Demons, and Dudes With 'Staches, opening Nov. 11, 2011
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Saturday, November 12, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
FREE with museum admission and open to the public
Join Pixar animator and storyboard artist Sanjay Patel and Qamar Adamjee, the Asian Art Museum's Associate Curator of South Asian art, for a discussion on Sanjay's artistic process and a dialogue on Indian art and culture.
You are invited to a book signing and reception with the Artist following the conversation event.
SACHI Reception, Peterson Lounge: RSVP info@sachi.org; tel. 650.918.6335.
Sanjay Patel is an animator and storyboard artist for Pixar Animation Studios. He is the author and illustrator of The Little Book of Hindu Deities and Ramayana: Divine Loophole. The latter presents a contemporary vision of the epic story, Ramayana, like no other, with more than 100 vibrant illustrations, sketches of work in progress, maps, and cast of characters–demons, gods, animals, and humans. He lives in Oakland, Ca.
Progam sponsored by the Asian Art Museum with a SACHI hosted reception.
Reception hosts Manish Kothari & Carmen Saura, and Meena Vashee.
In celebration of the Maharaja exhibition launch
at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco,
SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India,
cordially invites you to attend an illustrated presentation on Indian jewelry.
The Magic of India's Jewels
An Introduction to Mughal Jewels from Royal Households
and unique Gold Dowry and Temple Jewelry Traditions in South India
by Sue Ollemans
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Saturday, October, 22, 2011
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Muslim rulers in the Mughal courts introduced a new jewelry tradition in India which reflected their love of precious stones and passion for exquisite enameled works. Their use of abundant jewelry was tempered by the restrained elegance of each piece of adornment. Vast quantities of jewels stored in court treasuries were lavished on the Princes of India.
In contrast to Mughal traditions in North India, the South, including the Deccan, which escaped Mughal rule, preserved a much older tradition of gold dowry and temple jewelry. Both reinforced the storing and inheritance of vast quantities of gold passed on as family wealth and temple treasures. Jewelry pieces fashioned in pure gold and decorated with a pantheon of Hindu deities characterized women's adornment and votive pieces stored in South Indian temples.
About the speaker:
Sue Ollemans, a visiting scholar from London, specializes in Oriental works of art focusing mainly on Indian jewelry, Indian miniature
paintings, and also Chinese ceramics. Her latest catalogue is titled, Indian Jewellery. She trained at the Percival David Foundation and
SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) London University, and has been working with collectors and museum institutions around the world since 1979.
SACHI, The Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India
and The Center for South Asia at Stanford University
invite you to join a panel discussion and illustrated talk:
Saving the River Ganga in an Age of Pollution:
Can India's River Goddess be restored to health?
with Dr. Bailey Green and Catherine Porter
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Sunday, Sep. 18, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
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Considered the holiest–and yet most polluted, the threatened Ganga River brings a crisis. On the one hand, it is seen as a goddess that can carry away impurities, both spiritual and physical. On the other, people mindlessly continue to defile the river with human, industrial and toxic wastes.
Can we assume the river is purifying if it is
polluted? The condition of the river is so dire and
the effects of the river’s pollution on human and
environmental health considered so dangerous,
that there is an urgency to address hazards posed
by dangerously unsafe water quality.
The struggle to clean the river has a long history.
Ironically, the powerful environmental movement
was fuelled by spiritual motivation in concern for
the river, revered as a Mother. The Varanasi based
Sankat Mochan Foundation led by Dr. Veer Bhadra
Mishra, a head priest cum hydraulic engineer, and
the Friends of the Ganges, USA have been battling
for over 30 years to implement scientifically
researched clean water regulations, aimed at
restoring the river to health.
Panel discussants Dr. Bailey Green, President, GO2 Water, an East Bay water solutions company invited to implement an innovative AIWPS technology, and Catherine Porter, Executive President, Friends of the Ganges, USA, both actively involved in the Varanasi Ganges clean up efforts, will discuss how science, technology, religion, and environmentalism intersect in an ongoing challenge to bring hope to India’s millions who look to the river as a lifeline and a source of spiritual nourishment.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and the Palo Alto Art Center
invite you to commemorate the artisans of Kutch in a special presentation:
Ceramic Crafts of Kutch from Potters in Peril
by Paulomi Abhyankar
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Thursday, June 9, 2011, 7.00 p.m. Please join
us for light refreshments between Free admission; Limited seating |
Pottery has traditionally been a locally and environmentally sustainable craft in the region of Kutch. All the natural resources needed to turn earth into pottery are local. Clay, water, thorns, tender stems from the 'bawal' or Prosophis Julifera plant, jaru leaves, and the black stone used in making pottery are local materials found in the potters’ villages.
In 2001, a massive 8.0 earthquake in Kutch, Gujarat devastated the city of Bhuj and the local potter community in western India. It severely disrupted work rhythms and the production, sales and market patterns of this traditional age-old craft of Gujarat. The Potters in Peril Trust, a non-profit, arose in response to the urgent need of these craftsmen.
On June 12, 2001 an Indo-US ceramic exhibition, 'Potters in Peril', conceived and curated by Ms. Abhyankar was launched and inaugurated by the US Consul General at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. It displayed art works by over 60 Indian and American ceramicists for the benefit of quake-hit potters of Kutch.
June 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of the 'Potters in Peril' initiative and the US-India collaborative exhibition. In commemoration of Kutch potters, Ms. Abhyankar will provide a background of Kutch pottery and acknowledge the role of California ceramic artists in spontaneously reaching out to fellow artisans of the Bhuj earthquake.
About the speaker: Ms. Abhyankar is a renowned potter, who has shown her work in several countries, including Cyprus, Sweden and the US. She has been working with clay since 1970 and has been a member of several clay organisations including The Lalit Kala Akademi and The Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California. Paulomi Abhyankar also has a deep understanding and knowledge of the pottery of ancient civilisations and has lectured worldwide on this topic.
SACHI and the PAAC extend special thanks to Matra Majmundar & Raj Mashruwala for support towards the program.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India,
is honored to present
Dr. Abraham Verghese
Distinguished writer, medical practitioner, and Professor of Medicine, Stanford University in a lecture presentation
Writing and Medicine
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Thursday, May 12, 6.30 pm Please join us for light refreshments between 6 and 6.30 pm |
Abraham Verghese will speak about how he came to practice medicine — because of a book — and how he came to be a writer — because of a medical experience. He will discuss his deep interest in bedside medicine in this technological age.
In a time when the use of advanced technology frequently results in the needy patient receiving less attention than the patient data in the computer, Dr. Verghese brings an insightful revelation in his New England Journal of Medicine article, Culture Shock: Patient as Icon, Icon as Patient (December 2008), and in his book, Cutting for Stone (Alfred Knopff, 2009).
Cutting for Stone is a masterful first work of fiction by Abraham Verghese. His earlier non-fiction books include My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, and The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, Forbes.com, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
About the speaker:
Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Verghese grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there. He completed his medical education at Madras Medical College and came to the U.S. for his residency. His experiences at Johnson City, Tennessee, where he joined a residency program and returned later as assistant professor of medicine, and his fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine, working at Boston City Hospital for two years gave his life and career a turn in caring for numerous AIDS patients. His emphasis on physician-patient relationship became manifested in his role as Founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. His empathy and true caring for the patient gave the new Center a guiding mission, "Imagining the Patient's Experience".
SACHI extends grateful appreciation to Dr. Prithvi Legha and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation for support towards the program.
After the lecture there will be an opportunity for Q&A, and to have your books autographed by Dr. Abraham Verghese. There will be no book sales on the premises, so please purchase books and bring them with you.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
present a special contemporary art program:
The Poetics of Color
Natvar Bhavsar, A Painter's Journey
A documentary film by Sundaram Tagore
Please join us in Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
Saturday, March 19, 2 - 4 p.m.
Free after museum admission. Open to the public.
A 60-minute film screening will be followed by a Q & A with the artist Natvar Bhavsar and film producer Sundaram Tagore.
For information email info@sachi.org, nazehler@aol.com, or call Nazneen Spliedt, 650.624.8888
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The Poetics of Color: Natvar Bhavsar traces the roots of the Asian artist and his contributions to contemporary American art. Written and directed by Sundaram Tagore, this 60-minute film explores the life of noted Indian painter Natvar Bhavsar as he journeys from his vibrant village of Gothava, India to New York City in the 1960s. Here he comes of age as an artist. Bhavsar works like a Tibetan mandala painter in his meditative studio in SoHo, showering clouds of dry pigment on massive canvases.
The film explores the multicultural nature of Bhavsar's work. Recognized as a pioneer who paved the way for subsequent generations of immigrant artists, Bhavsar is considered to have extended the language of visual art. Last year, one of Bhavsar’s paintings was a central focus of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition The Third Mind. Bhavsar’s works reside in public and private collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His documentary film premiered at the 10th Annual Mahindra Indo-American Film Festival in New York City in November 2010.
Sundaram Tagore is a New York-based art historian with galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. He was the first gallerist to focus exclusively on globalization, assembling a roster of artists from around the world. A descendant of the influential Indian poet and Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore, he promotes East-West dialogue through his contributions to numerous exhibitions. Tagore writes for many art publications. He has worked with and served as an advisor to numerous arts organizations, including The Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, Venice, Italy, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the United Nations.
SACHI and the Asian Art Museum extend warm appreciation to sponsors Betty & Bruce Alberts, Lopa & Paritosh Choksi, Maura & Robert Morey, and Gita & Ashok Vaish.
SACHI, The Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India and The Center for South Asia at Stanford University present
Two Banks of a Sacred River: S.H. Raza's Life in Art
a lecture by Ashok Vajpeyi
poet, writer, and Chair of the Lalit Kala Akademi,
India's national academy of fine arts
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011, 7 - 9 p.m. Bldg. 200, Room 305 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (History corner at Serra Street & Lomita Mall) Visit campus map at http://campus-map.stanford.edu Free Admission and open to the public |
Syed Haider Raza is widely recognized as one of the undisputed masters of modern Indian art. Living in Paris for many years, he has combined in his art the French 'sens plastique' and a deeply rooted Indian vision. From painting landscapes and cityscapes, he has moved to explore inscapes--realities seen by the inner eyes. His art fuses sensuous colours with luminous spiritual grace. Raza returned to India in 2010, at the age of 89, after spending 60 years in France. An important member of the Progressive artists group which blazed new trails for modernism in Indian art, different from the dominant Bengal School of the 1940s, Raza became part of the Parisian art scene in the 1950s. In the 1970s, a process of self-questioning rejuvenated his Indian roots, giving rise to the iconic "Bindu" which combines energy and vision. Raza’s childhood memories of tribal forests in central India and particularly of the Narmada river came back to him and his canvas in full force, transformed into abstract images by a master colorist. Since then, Raza has been exploring the spiritual and the sensuous, including a vision of the origin of nature as a coming together of male and female energy. The talk by poet Ashok Vajpeyi, one of Raza's closest friends, will trace a fascinating artistic career.
About the speaker:
Ashok Vajpeyi -- Hindi poet, critic, translator, editor, and culture-activist -- is a major cultural figure of India. Since 2008 he has been Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, India's national academy of visual arts. The author of fifteen books of poetry and seven books of criticism in Hindi, three books on art in English, and innumerable articles, he is widely recognized as an outstanding promoter of culture and an innovative institution-builder. He has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Dayawati Kavi Shekhar Samman and the Kabir Samman, and has been decorated by the governments of France and Poland for his cultural contributions, including a translation of the works of four major Polish poets into Hindi.
Vajpeyi has co-authored Passion: The Life and Work of Raza (New Delhi: Rajkamal Books, 2005), with the artist. He has also edited A Life in Art (New Delhi: Art Alive Gallery, 2007), which contains articles by prominent art historians, artists, writers, and critics, on the work of Raza.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco are pleased to invite you to the SACHI Annual Event
Hasht Bihisht (Eight Paradises)
The Spatial Logic of Humayun’s Tomb-Garden and Landscape of Nizamuddin in Mughal Delhi
by Dr. James Wescoat
Distinguished Aga Khan Professor at MIT
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Saturday, Nov. 20, 2010, 1:30 p.m.
Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
Free after museum admission; light refreshments
Humayun’s tomb-garden, built during the mid-16th century in Delhi, had great significance in the history of Mughal architecture and landscape design. Previous research has focused on its antecedents, architecture, visual power, and its location near the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya (d. 1325 CE). This paper weaves these points together, showing how Humayun’s tomb-garden and its surroundings were laid out through a spatial analysis of the tomb and its garden walks, walls, proportions, and details. Conversion to Mughal units of measurement reveals the spatial logic of the complex—from the hasht bihisht plan of the garden, tomb and decorative details, to its relationship with the River Yamuna and the historic landscape of Nizamuddin. These spatial relationships among tomb, garden, shrine, and wider landscape opens up new perspectives and questions about the design of Mughal gardens and cities.
About the speaker:
Prof. Wescoat has focused the greater part of his career on small-scale historical waterworks of Mughal gardens and cities in India and Pakistan. He led the Smithsonian Institution’s project titled, “Garden, City, and Empire: The Historical Geography of Mughal Lahore” which evolved into a larger Mughal Gardens Project. It won the American Society of Landscape Architects award, as did the Moonlight Garden project on "New Discoveries at the Taj” in which Prof. Wescoat collaborated with Elizabeth Moynihan.
Prior to his current distinguished faculty position as Aga Khan Professor at MIT, Prof. Wescoat served as the head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
SACHI and the Asian Art Museum extend special thanks to sponsors Betty & Bruce Alberts, Merrill Randol Sherwin, Shivi Singh & Prithvi Legha, and Meena Vashee
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SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India
is honored to present
Carl Pope, Executive Chairman of the Sierra Club
in a time sensitive discussion . . .
The Changing Face of Himalayas:
Melting Glaciers and its Significance for the People, Environment,
and Culture of South Asia
Thursday, September 2, 2010, 7 p.m. |
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On top of the Himalayas, glaciers sustaining vast populations are dwindling. Himalayan glaciers have given birth to Asia’s largest rivers–the Ganges, the Indus, the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Brahmaputra– “rivers that over the course of history have nurtured civilizations, inspired religions, and sustained ecosystems”.
Melting glaciers portend a serious ecological threat; the eventual depletion of Asia’s greatest rivers that sustain
nearly a third of the world’s population. As reservoirs of existence, the mighty rivers hold spiritual significance and inspire deep devotion. The rivers bestow blessings of peace, calm, healing, and eternal life.
As a crisis brews on the “roof of the world“, will the sacred mountains and rivers continue to offer nourishment to
its people?
Carl Pope explores how a rapidly advancing environmental change is inducing a shift in traditional patterns of living for tens of thousands of people in South Asian communities.
SACHI extends special thanks to Prof. James Spudich and Center for South Asia, Stanford University, for support of the program. Many thanks, also, to individual sponsors Linda Burch & Rajen Dalal, Sheila & Ketan Kothari, and Jaymati & Mahendra Ranchod.
For information, call 650.918.6335
For directions, http://forum.stanford.edu/visitors/directions/clark.php
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SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and the Palo Alto Art Center present
Rabari Embroidery Workshop
Thursday, July 29, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Palo Alto Art Center Studios, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto
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Enrollment Fee: $60 Limited to 20 participants Registration is through For information call: 650.329.2366 (PAAC) 650.624.8888 (SACHI) |
This workshop will focus on Rabari embroidery from the Kutch region of India. Participants will learn intricate stitching techniques, setting mirrors, traditional concepts of Rabari color and form patterns, and creative evocation of artisans’ experiences through appliqué and embroidery. Participants will appreciate concept as well as learn skills, through working with traditional artisans. By the end of the workshop they will have produced a genuine Rabari embroidery or a personal textile expression, and have had the enriching experience of working directly with these skilled artisans. Participants will receive a materials list upon registration.
The workshop will be taught by two Kala Raksha artisans and Judy Frater, Project Director, Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya, a pioneering institution of design education for traditional artisans. The workshop will be accompanied by a film and introductory lecture by Judy Frater, and followed by a trunk show of Rabari textiles.
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About Kala Raksha:
Kala Raksha, a registered Society and Trust (NGO) based in Sumrasar Sheikh village in Kutch, works with several distinct cultures in order to preserve and protect traditional arts. Kala Raksha’s strengths are a deep understanding of traditional culture and arts, and its focus on the artisan. Believing that true development grows from self determination, the Trust involves artisans in design, production and marketing. To learn more about Kala Raksha, please visit the website: www.kala-raksha.org.
Kala Raksha workshop artisans:
Harkhuben Bhojraj Rabari: Fiber artist and award winning graduate, Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya, 2007.
Rabari is an expert artisan in beadwork, embroidery, and mud relief work. Since 1994 she embroiders professionally for Kala Raksha and creates beadwork for Kutchhi Rabari community. In 2008-2009, she served as a mentor for Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya. In 2010, her composition of “Krishna” was purchased by the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai.
Meghiben Rupa Meriya: Fiber artist and expert artisan in traditional embroidery.
Meriya joined Kala Raksha as patchwork artist in 2000 and pioneered the development of narrative art form in 2001. Among her narrative applique and embroidered works in exhibition displays include Earthquake 2001 (Resurgence exhibition, Australia, 2002); My Life (2003, published in International Gallerie, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2006, and submitted for President‘s Award, 2009); The Coming of Better Health (2007, permanent collection of UNDP); Monsoon Night (2007, UNESCO Seal of Excellence award); and Kutchh is the Centre of the World (2010, Map of Kutchh for Ilark Hotel, Bhuj). Images of her work and voice are starred in the award winning animated film, “Tanko Bole Chhe”.
Kala Raksha Project Director:
Judy Frater: Project Director, Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya, Kutch, India.
Frater established the first design school supported initially by UNESCO, the Government of India, and private donors in collaboration with Aid to Artisans. She was awarded the 2003 Ashoka fellowship for social entrepreneurship. Judy Frater was a Fulbright scholar in Kutchh (1990-91), and a Ford Foundation Fellow, Kutchh (1991-92). In 1993 she founded and coordinated a comprehensive development project, including establishing a local museum through the Kala Raksha Trust. Between 1989 and 1992, she was Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, for The Textile Museum, Washington D.C.
Judy Frater has curated numerous exhibitions on Kutchh textiles both in India and internationally. She has extensively documented Kutchh embroidery, jewelry and dyeing traditions, and served as consultant to the Museum of International Folk Art,Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Kelkar Museum in Pune, and as Researcher for the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, and the Smithsonian Institute Dept. of Anthropology.
Frater is the author of Threads of Identity: Embroidery and Adornment of the Nomadic Rabaris, published Mapin Inc., 1995. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her distinguished service in design education and research in Western India. She earned an M.A. from the University of Washington in Anthropology and Museology, and a second M.A. from the University of Minnesota in South Asia and Marathi Language. She received a B.A. from Lawrence University in Anthropology.
Rabari Textile Trunk Show
Date: July 29, 4-7 p.m.
Venue: Shah Residence, 91 Mt. Vernon Lane, Atherton, Ca. 94027
Free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
SACHI and the PAAC extend grateful appreciation to Matra Majmundar, Anjali Joshi, and Rekha & Bipin Shah for their kind support toward this program.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and the Palo Alto Art Center present Heaven on Earth: The Universe of Kerala’s Guruvayur Temple
by Pepita Seth
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Sunday, May 2, 2010, 11:00 a.m. Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 |
For over a thousand years Hindu pilgrims have swarmed into the sacred precincts of Kerala's Guruvayur Temple to seek the blessings of Lord Krishna, known locally as Guruvayurappan. According to myth the sacred idol, believed to have been worshipped by Lord Vishnu, was installed soon after the death of Krishna. It is now the sacred core of one of India’s most important temples, a temple renowned for the unbroken sanctity of rituals performed by hereditary priests, the Namboodiri Brahmins. Their links with the temple’s divine origins ensure that its unique customs are unceasingly adhered to.
The talk will reveal the complex heart of the temple, chronicling its myth and history, describing its rituals and beliefs, its traditional style of management, its elephants, its festivals and remarkable patronage of traditional art forms.
About the speaker:
Pepita Seth was born in London and grew up in Suffolk. She started her career editing British and American documentaries and feature films. The chance discovery of her great-grandfather’s 1857 diary inspired her to make her first visit to India. In 1972 she returned to Kerala, India where she now lives. Driven by her passion and respect for the region’s culture and traditions, Seth began seriously photographing and writing about the rituals of Kerala’s Hindus. In 1981, she received official permission to enter Kerala’s temples—including Guruvayur Temple.
SACHI extends appreciation to Poornima & Arun Kumar, Betty Alberts, and Louise Russell for sponsoring this special event.
For directions call 650.329.2366
For inquiries call 650.918.6335
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India
and The Center for South Asia at Stanford University
invite you to the launch of Shilpi Gowda’s new novel,
Secret Daughter
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Please join us for a reading, book discussion, and signing with the author. Thursday, March 18, 2010, 7:00 p.m. |
Gowda has masterfully portrayed two families . . . linked by a powerful,
painful tie that complicates their lives. . . . A thought-provoking
examination of the challenges of being a woman in America and
in India–and in the psychological spaces in between."
– Chitra Divakaruni, author of Palace of Illusions
About the Author:
Shilpi Somaya Gowda was born and raised in Toronto to parents who migrated there from Mumbai. She holds an MBA from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1991, she spent a summer as a volunteer in an Indian orphanage. A native of Canada, she has lived in New York, North Carolina, and California. She now lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband and children. www.shilpigowda.com
Visit campus map at http://campus-map.stanford.edu
For information contact info@sachi.org or call 650.918.6335
Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco invite you to a special SACHI annual event:
Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University and SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India present:
Borrowed Fire: The Shadow Puppets of Kerala
A film by Anurag Wadehra & Salil Singh
Thursday, January 21, 2010, 6:30 p.m.
Stanford University, Cummings Art Building,
Lower Level, Room 4
Free to the public
Film running time: 48 minutes
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On the southwestern coast of India an extraordinary performing art has evolved over many centuries. It is known as Tolpava Koothu - "the Play of Leather Shadows". Performed in special outdoor theatres facing temples of the goddess Bhadrakali, it enacts the story of the Ramayana, a sacred Hindu epic.
Borrowed Fire documentary, set in South India, exquisitely captures this tradition on film. The struggle of the last surviving scholar and master-puppeteer to practice and preserve an ancient performing art provides a rare and poignant glimpse of a flame on the verge of extinction.
Q & A with filmmakers Anurag Wadehra & Salil Singh follows the film screening. For more information about this documentary and the filmmakers, visit www.kathanjali.com.
For inquiries call 650.918.6335 or email info@sachi.org
For directions go to campus map
For directions call 408.971.0323. Free Sunday street parking
SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India
and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles present:
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Colors of Punjab: Sunday, Dec. 13, 2:00 p.m. Free after museum admission |
Phulkari (flower embroidery) is a craft unique to the Punjab that has been popular since the 15th century. Pieces of cotton or silk fabric are embroidered with elaborate baghs (gardens), formed by intricate geometric patterns in bright contrasting colors. To this day these beautifully designed phulkaris are worn during marriages and festivals, and are passed down from mothers to daughters as part of marriage dowries.
This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Reincarnation: The Crazy Collage Aesthetic of India and Japan, November 17, 2009-February 7, 2010 at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, www.sjquiltmuseum.org.
Shivi Singh, MA, Art History, Punjab University, Chandigarh, India, is a recognized scholar for her writing and research on Rajasthani art and craft work. She lives in the Bay Area and lectures on the art and culture of India. She is an active member of SACHI.
For directions call 408-971-0323. Free Sunday street parking
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Hybrid Lotuses: The Flowering of Indian-Related Culture in Siam and Burma Sunday, November 8, 2009, 2:15 p.m. Free after museum admission |
More than a thousand years ago Southeast Asian kingdoms adapted aspects of Indian classical culture, from the great religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism to mythology, astronomy, and royal ceremonial. In nineteenth-century Siam and Burma, the focus of the Asian Art Museum's current exhibition, many of these traditions continued to thrive, though often in forms that would not be immediately recognizable from the Indian point of view. The epic of Rama was one of the most important subjects in dance-drama, the puppet theater, painting, and sculpture and the Pali and Sanskrit languages continued to be studied by monks and scholars. The talk will explore some of these Indic connections, as they can be seen in the artworks in the museum's exhibition.
Enjoy a free 12 noon public tour of the exhibition
Free Sunday street parking
SACHI and the Asian Art Museum extend special thanks to Willis Deming and Lata Krishnan & Ajay Shah for generously sponsoring this event
This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma, 1775-1950,
October 23, 2009-January 10, 2010 at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.
SACHI and the Society for Asian Art invite you to a special viewing
of a private textile collection
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Saturday, September 12, 2009 FREE ADMISSION Our host can only accommodate 24 invitees, 12 from each sponsoring group. |
SACHI members please call Anna Spudich at 650.941.4268 by August 15th or email info@sachi.org
Society For Asian Art Upper Level members only, please call the SAA office at 415.581.3701 or email saa@asianart.org
About the Collection:
Harry Greenberg, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, has been collecting textiles for 30 years. He started with traditional oriental rugs (both village and tribal), but over the years has put together an eclectic group of several separate collections. His collection includes Andean textiles (both pre-Colombian and post-conquest), woven baskets from many cultures, African textiles, central Asian carpets and textiles, Indian Chintz and other Indian textiles. His primary objective throughout his collecting has been to identify objects that are both beautiful and uncommon.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India
is pleased to invite you to an evening of conversation and slides
with San Francisco editor and writer, Zahid Sardar.
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Water and Reflection Tuesday Home of Margy Boyd |
Water, central to the Indian cosmos and society, is reflected in Indian art and architecture as well as gardens. Zahid Sardar author of New Garden Design and other design books, and a journalist in San Francisco for over two decades, traveled recently to historic gardens in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Udaipur, as well as to the fascinating 1960s rock garden by Nek Chand in Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh.
With slides and images, Zahid Sardar will discuss the cosmic and social ideas that underpin many of these beautiful spaces and how the concepts that shaped Indian paradise gardens have also influenced modern landscapes in the West.
Please join us for light refreshments and a book signing with the author on his recent publication, New Garden Design.
Zahid Sardar is a San Francisco editor and writer who specializes in interiors, architecture and design. He is the author of New Garden Design and San Francisco Modern. He has also written the text of Textiles Arts of India and his articles about design have appeared in Metropolis, Architecture, Interior Design, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, House & Garden, Western Interiors & Design and Landscape Architecture magazines. He was the architecture and design editor of the San Francisco Examiner magazine and has been design editor at the San Francisco Chronicle for a decade.
Rsvp required, Tel. 650.918.6335 or email info@sachi.org
Free Admission; Limited Seating
The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI) presents
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An afternoon with Mrs. Asha Sharma Sunday August 9, 2009 Home of Gita & Ashok Vaish |
Mrs. Sharma will discuss her book which is a fascinating biography of her grandfather Satyanand Stokes, who went to India in 1904 at the age of 21 to work in a leper home. He eventually settled in the Simla Hills and had a tremendous impact on the lives of the local hill people. He introduced the American Delicious variety of apple to India, which resulted in many social and economic changes. On the national level Stokes actively participated in India's freedom struggle and is remembered today as the only American who went to jail for India's cause.
Asha Sharma is the granddaughter of Satyanand Stokes and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism. She has also been a fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research in New Delhi and a Research Associate at the University of California at Berkeley.
Space is limited and reservations are required.
For reservations call 650.918.6335. Carpools strongly encouraged.
The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI), and The Palo Alto Art Center are pleased to present an illustrated talk
Creating an Ethnic Statement by textile design artist Bina Rao |
Sunday, June 21, 2:00 p.m. Free Admission and Open To The Public |
Textile scholar and design artist Bina Rao merges contemporary design trends with traditional weaving and printing techniques using handspun yarn and natural dyes. As advisor to a number of state and central government agencies in India, Ministry of Textiles, and the World Crafts Council, Bina Rao is dedicated to the healthy growth of handlooms and handicrafts in India and Southeast Asia.
The survival of craft traditions is at a crossroad. Can natural yarns, colors, and going ethnic help to revitalize the rapidly disappearing craft legacy and its adverse impact on rural artisans? Hear Bina Rao discuss the revival of traditional techniques for creating unique design products, involving training clusters of rural weavers, and linking them to the Hyderabad based design studio, Creative Bee, begun with her husband Kesav Rao, a master dyer and accomplished artist.
A sampling of designer fabrics will be available for sale.
Bina Rao received her MFA in Painting from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, and studied Textile Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. She has been invited to lead workshops, teaching assignments, and lecture and design development projects in Australia, USA, Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.
Join SACHI in an afternoon of conversation and food with Niloufer Ichaporia King, anthropologist and award-winning author of My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking.
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Sunday, May 3, 4:00-7:00 pm
Home of |
In the relaxed setting of a private house on a Sunday afternoon, fellow Bombay-ite and SACHI friend, Kamini Ramani, chats with Niloufer about the historical and cultural background of Parsi cuisine and the stories behind her engaging book. Before we eat, drink and resume conversation, Niloufer will introduce the dishes to be served and talk about their role in both Bombay’s gleefully ecumenical food scene and the Parsi kitchen.
Anthropologist, scholar, teacher and cook, Niloufer Ichaporia King studies tropical cuisines, plants for food and medicine, and food as an expression of both cultural change and stability. Born in Bombay, now Mumbai, Niloufer King has lived in the Bay Area for over thirty years. In the course of studying Design and Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, she developed an exhibition, Sons of Vishvakarma: The Artisans of India for the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. She also compiled two collections which included rapidly disappearing ethnographic material from Hong Kong and from her own Parsi community.
My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking (University of California Press, 2007) chronicles the food of one Parsi family spanning three generations and two continents.
Kamini Ramani is a once-and-forever Bombayite who has sampled Parsi treats at the homes of her legendary professors at Elphinstone College. She is delighted to help SACHI provide Bay Area food enthusiasts a peek into a unique woman and a unique cuisine.
FILMS
Kabir Festival at Stanford
Four new documentary films by Shabnam Virmani will be screened. The films highlight folk and classical musicians who sing and reflect on the poetry of Kabir; the films also tell stories, revealing issues that arise around Kabir’s presence in a variety of social, religious, and political contexts in India and Pakistan. The culmination of the festival will be the arrival of the filmmaker and of renowned Kabir folksinger Prahlad Singh Tipanya with his musical group on May 8, when we will screen the fourth film, followed by Q&A with the director, a dinner, and a live concert.
CO-SPONSOR: Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI)
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: Descriptions of the films can be found at www.kabirproject.org. For further info, contact Prof. Linda Hess, lionda@stanford.edu
Thurs., Feb. 12, 7 p.m., film in Bldg 300, room 300
Had-Anhad—“Bound-Unbound”: Journeys with Ram and Kabir (105 min.)
Mon., Feb 23, 7 p.m., film in Bldg 200, room 205
Koi sunta hai: “Someone is Listening”—Journeys with Kumar and Kabir (96 min.)
Mon., Apr 20, 7 p.m., film in Bldg 200, room 203
Chalo Hamara des: “Come to my country”—Journeys with Kabir and friends (97 min.)
Friday, May 8 4-6 p.m., location TBA
Kabira khada bazaar mein: “In the market stands Kabir”—Journeys with Sacred and Secular Kabir (94 min.), followed by Q&A with the director and singer Prahlad Tipanya, who is featured in the film
6:30-7:30 Outdoor dinner (reservations required, modest charge to cover costs)
7:30-9:30, Concert in Annenberg Auditorium, Cummings Art Building Prahlad Singh Tipanya, renowned folksinger of Malwa, Madhya Pradesh, with fellow musicians Ambaram Tipanya, Ajay Tipanya, Vijay Tipanya, and Devnarayan Saroliya
Program at UC Berkeley
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009, 5 pm - Film Screening - 10 Stephens Hall
Had-Anhad—"Bound-Unbound": Journeys with Ram and Kabir (105 min.) Discussant: Vasudha Paramasivan (UC Berkeley)
Thursday, Feb 26, 2009, 5 pm - Film Screening - 10 Stephens Hall
Koi Sunta Hai: "Someone is Listening"—Journeys with Kumar and Kabir (96 min.) Discussant: Linda Hess (Stanford University)
Thursday, Mar 19, 2009, 5 pm - Film Screening - 10 Stephens Hall
Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein: "In the market stands Kabir"—Journeys with Sacred and Secular Kabir (94 min.) Discussant: Vasudha Dalmia (UC Berkeley)
Thursday, Apr 30, 2009, 5 pm - Film Screening - 10 Stephens Hall
Chalo Hamara Des: "Come to my country"—Journeys with Kabir and friends (97 min.) Discussant: Shabnam Virmani (Director)
Friday, May 1, 2009, 6 pm - Music Concert - Stephens Hall Terrace Prahlad Singh Tipanya and Party
PRAHLAD SINGH TIPANYA lives in Lunyakhedi village in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, near the cities of Dewas and Ujjain. A rural schoolteacher, he began singing in the late 1970s after being attracted by the sound of the folk tambura. His rare talent, passion, and insight have caused him to be increasingly recognized as a remarkable exponent of Kabir’s music and meanings. Among many other honors, he received the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 2008. (Sangeet Natak, India’s national academy of music, dance, and drama, gives eight annual awards to musicians, only one of which is reserved for a non-classical performer.) Tipanyaji is one of the main artists featured in Shabnam Virmani’s films. A grant for the musicians’ international travel has been generously provided by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Award-winning filmmaker SHABNAM VIRMANI has spent the last six years producing four feature-length documentaries on living Kabir culture, focusing on music and musicians, all embedded in various social, political and religious contexts. Along with these films she has produced ten remarkable audio CDs and a set of beautiful books to accompany CDs and DVDs. This work has been generously supported by Ford Foundation and by Srishti College of Art, Design, and Technology in Bengaluru, where Shabnam is artist-in-residence. Two of these films were recently broadcast on NDTV-Delhi. Had-Anhad: “Bound Unbound” was one of two films selected to share first prize at the recent One Billion Eyes Film Festival in Chennai. For descriptions of the films and other creations, please visit www.kabirproject.org.
Stanford faculty member LINDA HESS has been translating and writing on Kabir for many years and has worked closely with Prahlad Tipanya and Shabnam Virmani since 2002. She is author, with Shukdeo Singh, of The Bijak of Kabir (Oxford University Press, 2002). Her book Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir is forthcoming from Seagull Books (http://www.seagullindia.com/books/forthenactment.asp), and a book on Kabir oral traditions in rural Madhya Pradesh is in progress. Prof. Hess will introduce these events.
LECTURE
Palaces of British India:
Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, the Hill Stations & New Delhi
The Durbar Hall in the Viceroy's House,
completed 1929, by Sir Edwin Lutyens, New Delhi
Sunday, March 29, 4:00-6:00 pm
Home of Bipin & Rekha Shah
91 Mount Vernon Lane, Atherton, CA 94027
Refreshments will be served; free admission
Political purpose and architectural splendor were closely allied in the palaces built for British-ruled India. Illustrations for this lecture will depict edifices in seventeenth and eighteenth century Madras and Calcutta, second city of the British Empire, and the "City of Palaces"; the High Victorian leviathans of Bombay; the remarkable Viceregal hillstation of Simla, celebrated by Kipling's Tales from the Hills; and the swan song of imperial architecture, the impressive capital of New Delhi, created by renowned architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.
ROBERT GRANT IRVING was educated at Balliol College, Oxford; King’s College, Cambridge; and Yale University. A Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale, he has taught at Yale, Wesleyan, Trinity College, and the University of Virginia. Dr. Irving has lectured worldwide, and has held research grants in India, Africa, Britain, and the United States, including a Fulbright Scholarship and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. His book, Indian Summer, on the creation of New Delhi, won the British Council Prize as well as the highest honor of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award.
Special thanks to Rekha & Bipin Shah, Arvind Iyer, Helen & Raj Desai, and Michio Yamaguchi.
• Download program announcement (.pdf)
LECTURE & TOUR
Guru Nyima Ozer
Late 19th century, ink & mineral colors on cotton
Do Khachu Gonpa, Chukka, Bhutan
The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan
A Conversation with Curator Emeritus Terese Bartholomew
Sunday, March 15
11:00 am, Lecture
12:15 pm, Bhutan exhibition tour
Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
Free with museum admission
Space is limited and reservations are required
For reservations call 650.624.8888
or email nazehler@aol.com
Co-sponsored with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Providing a glimpse at the more than eight years of research, negotiation and
preparation, curator emeritus Terese Bartholomew introduces the enigmatic
kingdom of Bhutan and the objects on view in The Dragon’s Gift: the Sacred Arts
of Bhutan.
The Dragon's Gift is an unprecedented exhibition exploring the remote and mystical Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. On public display for the first time are sacred objects such as thangka paintings, sculptures and textiles, many of which are actively used in rituals and religious ceremonies. Making this exhibition unique, most of the pieces on display are from working temples and serve as consecrated objects of worship. Two monks from Bhutan accompany the exhibition, performing daily rituals and prayers, a required tradition for many of the sacred objects on display.
• Download program announcement (.pdf)
SYMPOSIA/PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Humanities West presents
India Rising: Tradition Meets Modernity
February 27-28, 2009
Herbst Theatre, San Francisco
India's artists, in pace with their country's rapid modernization, have adopted many contemporary techniques. Yet past traditions remain strong. Familiar themes and modern modes of expression interplay with fruitful creative tension. Abstract and surrealist artists incorporate images of legendary gods and heroes in their work, and musicians create exciting new sounds in collaboration with Western jazz and classical performers. Literature and cinema with rural village scenes compete with others featuring urban landscapes, Indian-American cultural fusion, and the seductive joys of Bollywood. The result: unique new delights for the eye, the ear, and the spirit.
In Partnership with the Center for South Asia Studies, University of California Berkeley and the Music Department, University of California Santa Cruz.
SACHI is a Cooperating Partner with Humanities West
• Learn more about pre-program and program events
• Learn more about this program's presenters
• Suggested Reading and Resources for this program
• Download the brochure for this program (.pdf)
SYMPOSIA/PANEL DISCUSSIONS
A Conference at University of California, Berkeley
Recovering Afghanistan's Past
Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15, 2008
9am - 5pm
Chevron Auditorium, International House, University of California, Berkeley
For detailed conference schedule, please visit http://ieas.berkeley.edu/events/2008.11.14w.html
Free admission to the talks on the Berkeley campus
http://www.asianart.org/lectures.htm#lectures
Pendant from Tillya Tepe. National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul. Photo © Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier.
This conference will focus on Afghanistan's cultural heritage in its past and present contexts and bring together scholars from various disciplines to address, among others, the following issues: the recovered objects from the National Museum; recent research and preservation/renovation projects; challenges of cultural heritage protection; the complexities of "targeted" heritage; cultural heritage and nationalism; and cultural heritage and globalization.
The conference has been organized in conjunction with the Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures exhibition which is on display at the Asian Art Museum October 24, 2008 through January 25, 2009.
Sponsors:
Center for Buddhist Studies (CBS), Al-Falah Program for Islamic Studies (CMES), Townsend Center for the Humanities, Center for South Asia Studies (CSAS), Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), History of Art Department, Society for Asian Art, Association for the Protection of Afghan Archaeology (APAA), California State University-East Bay, Consulate General of France, Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI), and International House.
Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI)
Annual Meeting and Lecture in Honor of Peg Haldeman
Co-sponsored by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Early Wall Paintings at Bundi
by Dr. Milo C. Beach
Sunday, October 19, 2008, 2:30 pm
Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
Free with museum admission
The most important early wall-paintings in Rajasthan can be found in the Badal Mahal in Bundi Fort, the greatest painted space in Rajasthan. Carefully conceived as a program of related images, and accompanied by an important group of paintings on paper, they also help to illuminate the development of painting at neighboring Kota.
Distinguished guest lecturer Dr. Milo C. Beach is former director of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution. He is a renowned scholar of South Asian painting and author of numerous books and articles, including most recently The Silk Road and Beyond: Travel, Trade, and Transformation (Art Institute of Chicago, 2007) and Rajasthani Painters: Bagta and Chokha, Master Artists at Devgarh (University of Washington Press, 2005).
This lecture celebrates the life of Margaret Haldeman. More fondly known as Peg, she was greatly inspired by the arts and landscape of India. In her last years, a romance with the stepwells of India drew her even closer! Her deep love for India led her and her husband, George, to travel there each year, often leading group excursions to unique destinations. Among their memorable trips was an exclusive visit led by guest lecturer Milo Beach to see the Badal Mahal paintings in Bundi fort in Rajasthan, and the murals at Sirohi, the subject of this special talk honoring Peg's enthusiasm for India and her generous support and appreciation of its arts.
Peg was a museum enthusiast, a founding member of SACHI, and one of the great supporters of its programs and activities. We honor Peg and George with great pride!
SACHI and the Asian Art Museum extend special thanks to Bruce & Betty Alberts, Raj & Helen Desai, Gursharan & Elvira Sidhu, Ketan & Sheila Kothari, and Manish Kothari & Carmen Saura for their generous support. Gracious thanks to all SACHI friends for their warm contributions.
SACHI, the Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India,
RANA, Rajasthan Association of North America,
Stanford University’s Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
and the Center for South Asia, jointly present
RUPAYAN:
Spectacular Folk Music Ensemble from Rajasthan
in collaboration with Kalapriya
Saturday, October 11, 2008, 6:30 pm
Campbell Recital Hall
Braun Music Center
541 Lausen Mall
Stanford University
Free Admission, Limited Seating.
RSVP 650.353.7846 or email sachi@gmail.com
Please note: New RSVPs will be waitlisted only
The Thar Desert region of Rajasthan has nurtured one of the most vibrant and evocative music cultures of the world. Rupayan is on tour with eight performers from the Langa and Manganiar communities of hereditary professional musicians, initially organized by the late ethnomusicologist and folklorist Komal Kothari of Jodhpur. They have performed in more than 200 venues in thirty countries.
The Langas and Manganiars are Muslim musicians who have traditionally performed for both Hindu and Muslim patrons. Many of their songs are in praise of Hindu deities and celebrate Hindu festivals such as Diwali and Holi. They also sing the poetry of South Asia's great Sufi poets.
The performance will be accompanied by narratives, and includes translations of selected song texts and a lively Q & A with the artists.
Special thanks to individual sponsors Jasmin & Gagan Arneja and Shivi Singh & Prithvi Legha for their generous contributions.
Directions: From Hwy. 101 take University Ave. exit to downtown Palo Alto. University Ave. becomes Palm Drive as you enter the Stanford campus. Turn left on Campus Drive. Turn right on Mayfield Ave. and right into Tressider parking lot. Campbell Recital Hall in the Braun Music Center is located across from Tressider Union.
SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India
and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
present
DIVIDED WE FALL:
Americans in the Aftermath
A powerful feature-length documentary film in the aftermath of 9/11
Driven to action by the murder of a turbaned man in her community, a college student drives across America in the aftermath of 9/11 to discover stories that did not make the evening news. From the still-shocked streets of Ground Zero to the desert towns of the American West, Valarie Kaur's inspiring journey uncovers remarkable stories of hate, violence, fear, and unspeakable loss–until she finds the heart of America halfway around the world, in the words of Balbir Sodhi’s widow. Five years in the making, Divided We Fall deftly explores race, religion, and identity in times of national crisis.
(110 minutes)
Filmmaker Valarie Kaur & Director Sharat Raju will be present for Q&A
Moderator, Professor Linda Hess, Co-Director,
Center for South Asia, Stanford University
Open to the public
12:30 pm: Lunch catered by Samovar Tea Lounge
2:00 pm: Film screening
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening Room
located on the Terrace Level of the Galleries
and Forum Building at 701 Mission @ 3rd
San Francisco, CA 94103
Watch film clips and reviews at www.dwf-film.com
Divine Visions Worldly Lovers
Mills College Art Museum
June 18−August 3, 2008
Opening Reception: Wednesday, June 18, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Please join a special SACHI tea reception, 2.00-3.00 p.m.
Curator's Walk-through and Lecture: Saturday, June 21, 3:00 p.m.
presented by Mills College Art Museum and SACHI
Mills College Art Museum
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, Ca. 94613
Divine Visions Worldly Lovers
Indian Paintings from the Collection of Barbara Janeff
Curated by Robert J. Del Bontà
Krishna Alone in the Forest (detail)
From a Gita Govinda of Jayadeva series
Punjab Hills, Himachal Pradesh, Kangra, ca. 1780
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
The diverse deities of South Asia are major themes in Indian painting but romantic love also plays a large role in the intensely-colored, and often small-scale, works. Both of these themes can be seen repeated often in the Janeff collection of Indian paintings. This Bay-Area collection, which includes work from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, highlights many styles and trends found in Indian art. Indian artists constantly played with various painting approaches— conflicting ones such as realism and abstraction—and often within a single work.
Perhaps confusing at first, upon closer inspection this layering of artistic conventions can be subtle and sophisticated. With the advent of the Mughal style, associated with a Muslim dynasty founded in the sixteenth century and ultimately ruling most of North India, European realism was introduced, particularly in the portrait tradition. The accomplished academic style developed in Mughal ateliers combined Indian and Persian styles with Western realism.
A full-color illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
http://www.mills.edu/campus_life/art_museum/current.php
For directions call 510-430-3250; museum information, 510.430.2164;
SACHI and the Center for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley proudly present:
William Dalrymple discussing his latest book
The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857
When: Wednesday, April 2 at 6.00 pm
Where: Morrison Room, 101 Doe Library
Talk followed by book signing
Co-sponsored by South & Southeast Asian Studies, Center for Middle East Studies and Center for British Studies
Mills College, The Asian Art Museum and the Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India present:
The Windsor Shahnama of 1648: An
Illustrated Persian Manuscript
Offered to Queen Victoria by an
Afghan Prince in 1839
Lecture by Dr. Eleanor Sims
Thursday, February 14, 2008
7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Asian Art Museum
Samsung Hall
200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
Free after museum admission
A literary masterpiece written by the poet Firdawsi at the turn of the eleventh century, the Shahnama (Book of Kings) chronicles the history of Iran from its mythical earliest days to the Muslim conquest. The importance of this text to Iranian culture is reflected in the thousands of copies made since its composition. A large and lavishly illustrated Shahnama volume was presented to Queen Victoria in 1839 by the Afghan prince Kamran Shah as a gesture of thanks to the British government for its support during the siege of the city of Herat. One of the most magnificent of all surviving manuscripts, the Windsor Shahnama is today considered among the finest treasures in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. The co-author of the just released book: The Windsor Shahnama of 1648, Dr. Eleanor Sims, will discuss the artistic and cultural significance of this 17th-century Shahnama, some of the 148 paintings in it, and the rich illumination in several colors of gold on virtually all of the more than 1,500 pages of the manuscript.
Dr. Sims is the editor of Islamic Art, a scholarly journal focused on the material culture of the Muslim world. She has written extensively on Iranian art including the book, Peerless Images in Persian Painting.
CSAS Public Film & Documentary Series
Center for South Asia Studies,
Gender & Women's Studies
Beatrice Bain Research Group, and
Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI)
present
The Shape of Water
A documentary by Kum-Kum Bhavnani
Narrated by Susan Sarandon
Tuesday, February 19, 3.30 p.m.
370 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley
Visit us on the web at ias.berkeley.edu/southasia
A story of five women in India, Brazil, Jerusalem and Senegal
who defy societal taboos to change their communities
Kum-Kum Bhavnani is a Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara and a film-maker. Her first documentary, THE SHAPE OF WATER, premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2006, and has since toured internationally with screenings in Durban, New York, Los Angeles, Barcelona and Rome. Her film was supported by grants from UCSB, the LEF Foundation, the Ford Foundation as well as private donors.
Bhavnani grew up in England, and since age 18 she worked on anti-racist, international, feminist and trade union issues. She was an invited participant at the 2001 Durban World Conference against Racism.
Kum kum Bhavnani earned her Ph.D from Cambridge University (King's College) in 1988 and published her first book, Talking Politics in 1991.
Screening followed by Q&A with Director
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SACHI, The Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India, and CIF, Cultural Integration Fellowship, invite you to
Monarchs in Indian Art
An Illustrated Talk
by Dr. Gautama Vajracharya
The mainstream Indian art is almost devoid of any representation depicting a monarch engaged either in a battle or in a hunting expedition. Such a non-violence approach of the artistic tradition differs drastically from the literary heritage of the country. Sanskrit literature, for instance, is full of detailed descriptions of the ruthless slaughter of an enemy in a battle and the bravery of a warrior king in killing the beasts of game. What is the reason for
such difference? A new investigation on this subject is the main focus of Dr. Vajracharya’s talk.
Sunday, March 2, 2008, 2:00 pm
Cultural Integration Fellowship
2650 Fulton Street at 3rd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
Dr. Gautama Vajracharya is a Sanskrit scholar with a keen interest in South Asian art. He teaches Indian civilization and art history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His most recent publication is the Watson Collection of Indian Miniatures at the Elvejehm Museum of Art. He is also the author of
Everlasting Flower of Buddhist Art.
www.sachi.org
www.culturalintegrationfellowship.org
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