November 15 , 2025
05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Aditya Birla Auditorium | On-Site
This panel invites exploration into the relationship between folk and tribal traditions and antiquities. It illustrates how these forms of art intertwine with historical narratives to preserve and evolve indigenous Indian craftsmanship in modern and contemporary times. The discussion highlights themes of cultural continuity, adaptation, and resilience amid historical shifts such as colonialism, migration, and globalization. The session will also address the integration of antiquities into contemporary art, the international antiquities market, and innovative conservation methods that honor living traditions. Through these conversations, the panel aims to show how ancient artifacts continue to shape India’s cultural identity.
Dr. Sureshkumar Muthukumaran is Assistant Professor of World History at the National University of Singapore. His work focuses on long-distance interactions between peoples in ancient Afro-Eurasia with an eye to movements of flora and fauna. His first book, The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, was the winner of the 2024 Jerry Bentley Prize in World History awarded by the American Historical Association and the 2025 Mary W. Klinger Award offered by the Society for Ethnobotany. He is also the co-author of the British Museum’s Ancient India exhibition book.
Minhazz Majumdar is a curator, writer and designer who has been deeply involved in preserving and promoting Indian folk and tribal cultural traditions. As a curator, Majumdar has worked on ground-breaking shows on India in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia and has built permanent collections of Indian art, especially folk and tribal art for museums across the world including QAGOMA, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, National Museums, Liverpool and Glasgow Museums. Majumdar has also written extensively on Indian art and culture for publications across the world.
Mitchell S Crites is an American art historian who has lived, researched, and worked in India for more than fifty years. His primary focus has been the revival of classical Indian and Islamic arts and crafts as well as maintaining a keen interest in folk, tribal and traditional art as a collector, reviver, and nourisher of diverse arts and crafts. Crites was a close friend of the legendary Pardhan Gond artist, Jangarh Singh Shyam until his untimely death in 2001. He believes passionately in the unique power and creativity of Indian indigenous art and continues to collect the work of the early masters and to search for promising new artists as well as exciting developments and trends emerging deep within the primordial roots of the art itself.
