This lecture will reflect on two distinct moments in the speaker’s curatorial practice where technology was and is a tool in breaking barriers across territories for public engagement with arts, heritage and culture. One, when a 3D map of an exhibition curated in Delhi, of Indian and Pakistani origin artists, was used as a teaching tool to expand the notion of ‘ownership’ of history. Second, a global collaboration of technologists and designers to create Augmented Reality filters for a guerilla tour about looted artefacts in a well known museum. Both these experiences were moments where information disseminated through technology, and, using technology allowed for space of advocacy of complicated intangible histories through tangible objects. The lecture is a crystallisation of these learnings which the advantage of retrospect and reflection and a possible way-forward playbook on how these learnings can actionalise advocacy and change through the public, if circumstances and intent align.
About the Speaker:
Shaleen Wadhwana is an independent award-winning arts educator, researcher, and curator bringing audiences closer to South Asian history, art, heritage, and culture. Academically trained in Art History (SOAS, London) & Cultural Heritage Law (UNESCO, Geneva), her research has been showcased through The Unfiltered History Tour by Vice World News UK at the British Museum, London, and it bagged 12 awards at the Cannes Lions Festival (France) - a first time for India. In 2023, She was invited to study the archives of Gallery Chemould Prescott Road, one of the oldest art galleries in South Asia, and curated their 60th-anniversary exhibition - CheMoulding Framing Future Archives. Recently, she has been onboarded as the South Asia advisor for KADIST, a French-American global non-profit contemporary art organization. She has lectured at universities specialising in design and art, including the Cultural Management Department, Ministry of Culture, India, and Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan, USA.
Online via Zoom: https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/65457930296?pwd=dFSisXm0janPDpKlqdJNxSPY2Jyee5.1