TrAIN/University of the Arts London
The Afterlives of Monuments Conference 29&30 April 2010

This two day conference, including an evening lecture event on Thursday 29
April, brings together leading scholars from within and outside South Asia to
create an international forum to debate the status and survivals of key
markers in the colonial and post- colonial histories and spaces of South
Asia. Speakers consider the ‘afterlives’ of monuments, variously addressing 3
key questions relevant globally as well as locally: what makes a monument,
under what conditions does it endure and for whom? They address how monuments
have been reinvented and transformed for a succession of presents, for
changing audiences and diverse communities. As one identifies, ‘the memorial
can only survive through reinvention’.

Architecture, sculpture, popular culture – monuments are multi-dimensional
and multi-media, and speakers are from anthropology, art history, media
studies, architecture, the museum world, and contemporary artistic practice.
The period considered is from 1850s to the present. South Asian examples and
settings are contextualised with a comparator of Ottoman monuments to explore
the links between the afterlives of monuments and the aftermaths of empires.
The conference aims to engage transnational, cross-cultural histories and
interdisciplinary approaches, to scrutinise the vast diversity of monuments
(and conceptions of monuments) in South Asia in the past and the present, and
to test whether and to what extent South Asian examples demand not only a
challenge to western paradigms but the creation of new conceptual models and
theories.

Speakers include Tapati Guha Thakurta, Zeynep Çelik, Gayatri Sinha, Raminder
Kaur-Kahlon, Clare Harris and Adam Hardy.

The conference will take place at Central Saint Martins College of Art and
Design in London.

For a full list of speakers, more information, ticket prices or to reserve
seats, please contact
e.broerchelsea.arts.ac.uk<mailto:e.broerchelsea.arts.ac.uk>