Sydney Asian Art Series 2023

Kavita Singh is an art historian based in New Delhi, who works on the history of Indian painting, and the history and politics of museums. Formerly Professor and Dean at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, she has published essays on issues of colonial history, repatriation, secularism and religiosity, fraught national identities, and the memorialization of difficult histories as they relate to museums in South Asia and beyond. She has also published widely on Mughal painting, exploring style as a visual language self-consciously used by artists as a vehicle of meaning. She is the editor and author of numerous acclaimed books, including: No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia (co-edited with Saloni Mathur, Routledge, 2014), Museums, Heritage, Culture: Into the Conflict Zone (2015), Real Birds in Imagined Gardens: Mughal Painting Between Persia and Europe (2016), Museum Storage and Meaning: Tales from the Crypt (co-edited with Mirjam Brusius, 2017) and Scent Upon a Southern Breeze: The Synaesthetic Arts of the Deccan (2018). Singh was awarded the Infosys Prize for the Humanities in 2018 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. 

Kavita Singh is an art historian based in New Delhi, who works on the history of Indian painting, and the history and politics of museums. Formerly Professor and Dean at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, she has published essays on issues of colonial history, repatriation, secularism and religiosity, fraught national identities, and the memorialization of difficult histories as they relate to museums in South Asia and beyond. She has also published widely on Mughal painting, exploring style as a visual language self-consciously used by artists as a vehicle of meaning. She is the editor and author of numerous acclaimed books, including: No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia (co-edited with Saloni Mathur, Routledge, 2014), Museums, Heritage, Culture: Into the Conflict Zone (2015), Real Birds in Imagined Gardens: Mughal Painting Between Persia and Europe (2016), Museum Storage and Meaning: Tales from the Crypt (co-edited with Mirjam Brusius, 2017) and Scent Upon a Southern Breeze: The Synaesthetic Arts of the Deccan (2018). Singh was awarded the Infosys Prize for the Humanities in 2018 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. 

Yael Rice is associate professor of art history and Asian languages and civilizations at Amherst College, Massachusetts. She specializes in the art and architecture of South Asia, Central Asia, and Iran, with a particular focus on manuscripts and other portable arts of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Between 2009-12, she held the position of Assistant Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Recent publications include “Art History Beyond Objects” (Art Journal Open, published 26 January 2023), on the importance of centering critical digital methods and tools in the teaching of collections-based art history courses; and, with Stephennie Mulder, “The Mystery of the Timurid Qur’an” (Prospect Magazine, published online July 22, 2020), on the commercial sale of Islamic manuscripts lacking any publicly-stated authenticating provenance. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court (University of Washington Press, 2023). 

Yael Rice is associate professor of art history and Asian languages and civilizations at Amherst College, Massachusetts. She specializes in the art and architecture of South Asia, Central Asia, and Iran, with a particular focus on manuscripts and other portable arts of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Between 2009-12, she held the position of Assistant Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Recent publications include “Art History Beyond Objects” (Art Journal Open, published 26 January 2023), on the importance of centering critical digital methods and tools in the teaching of collections-based art history courses; and, with Stephennie Mulder, “The Mystery of the Timurid Qur’an” (Prospect Magazine, published online July 22, 2020), on the commercial sale of Islamic manuscripts lacking any publicly-stated authenticating provenance. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Brush of Insight: Artists and Agency at the Mughal Court (University of Washington Press, 2023). 

Nancy Um is professor in the department of art history at Binghamton University. She received her PhD in art history from UCLA in 2001. Her research explores the Islamic world from the perspective of the coast, with a focus on material, visual, and built culture on the Arabian Peninsula and around the rims of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Her book The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port(University of Washington Press, 2009) relies upon a cross-section of visual, architectural, and textual sources to present the early modern coastal city of Mocha as a space that was nested within wider world networks, structured to communicate with far-flung ports and cities across a vast matrix of exchange. Her recent book, Shipped but not Sold: Material Culture and the Social Order of Trade during Yemen’s Age of Coffee(University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), explores the material practices and informal social protocols that undergirded the overseas trade in 18thC Yemen. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, African Arts, Northeast African Studies, Journal of Early Modern History, Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, Art History, and Getty Research Journal. She has received research fellowships from the Fulbright program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Getty Foundation, and the American Institute for Yemeni Studies.

Deepthi Murali is a Research Assistant Professor at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) at George Mason University. She is an art historian of South Asia with a focus on decorative arts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South India. Her research examines networked histories of production, circulation, and use of wood and ivory objects from southwestern India and cotton textiles from southeastern India, globally. At RRCHNM, Deepthi manages digital public humanities projects and carries out digital art historical research for three projects: she is co-PI on Connecting Threads, a born-digital project exploring the history of striped and checked Indian cotton textiles and their use by free and enslaved black communities in the Greater Caribbean Region. Her other digital art history project focuses on the history of eighteenth-century chintz textiles from India, using textiles metadata from museums to explore what digital humanities methodologies can bring to the discipline. Deepthi is also the project director for the HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium, a digital public history project led by The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her research and projects have been funded by National Endowment for the Humanities, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and American Institute of Indian Studies.

Melody Rod-ari is Associate Professor and Chair of Art History at Loyola Marymount University. She is also the Southeast Asian Content Editor for Smarthistory as well as an active curator who has organized exhibitions and permanent galleries for the Norton Simon Museum and the University of Southern California, Pacific Asia Museum. Her research investigates Buddhist visual culture in Thailand, and the history of collecting South and Southeast Asian art in America. Her work has been published by various journals and university presses and include topics such as “Returning ‘Home’: The Journey and Afterlife of Repatriated Objects (University of Florida Press, 2019) and “Who Owns Ban Chiang?: The Discovery, Collection and Repatriation of Ban Chiang Artefacts” (NUS Press, 2020). 

Melody Rod-ari is Associate Professor and Chair of Art History at Loyola Marymount University. She is also the Southeast Asian Content Editor for Smarthistory as well as an active curator who has organized exhibitions and permanent galleries for the Norton Simon Museum and the University of Southern California, Pacific Asia Museum. Her research investigates Buddhist visual culture in Thailand, and the history of collecting South and Southeast Asian art in America. Her work has been published by various journals and university presses and include topics such as “Returning ‘Home’: The Journey and Afterlife of Repatriated Objects (University of Florida Press, 2019) and “Who Owns Ban Chiang?: The Discovery, Collection and Repatriation of Ban Chiang Artefacts” (NUS Press, 2020). 

Dr Stacey Pierson is Professor of the History of Chinese Ceramics at SOAS, University of London. In addition to teaching and supervising research students in the School of Arts, she is President of the Oriental Ceramic Society (London) and series editor for the Routledge title Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1550-1950. Previously, from 1995 – 2007, she was Curator of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese art, also at the University of London, which housed the world-renowned David collection of Chinese ceramics. She has published widely on aspects of Chinese ceramics and the history of collecting and exhibitions, including Collectors, Collections and Museums: the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain: 1560-1960 (2007), Chinese Ceramics: a Design History (2009), From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain (2013), Private Collecting, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Art History in London: the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1866-1950 (2017) and the edited volume Visual, Material and Textual Cultures of Food and Drink in China, 200 BCE – 1900 CE, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 25 (2022). Her most recent research project focused on Dr Johnson’s Chinese teapot, which is on display in the British Museum.

Dr Stacey Pierson is Professor of the History of Chinese Ceramics at SOAS, University of London. In addition to teaching and supervising research students in the School of Arts, she is President of the Oriental Ceramic Society (London) and series editor for the Routledge title Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1550-1950. Previously, from 1995 – 2007, she was Curator of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese art, also at the University of London, which housed the world-renowned David collection of Chinese ceramics. She has published widely on aspects of Chinese ceramics and the history of collecting and exhibitions, including Collectors, Collections and Museums: the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain: 1560-1960 (2007), Chinese Ceramics: a Design History (2009), From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain (2013), Private Collecting, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Art History in London: the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1866-1950 (2017) and the edited volume Visual, Material and Textual Cultures of Food and Drink in China, 200 BCE – 1900 CE, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 25 (2022). Her most recent research project focused on Dr Johnson’s Chinese teapot, which is on display in the British Museum.