Beyond the Exhibition: Collaborative Methods Behind 'Mughal Banaras'

This event builds on a previous SOAS Gallery talk on Mughal Banaras, offering a fresh and expanded conversation between the two collaborators behind the exhibition Mughal Banaras: Forgotten Histories, Troubled Present. While returning attendees will encounter new reflections and insights, no prior knowledge of the project or earlier event is required.

The talk brings together historian Malavika Kasturi and architect and photographer Jateen Lad for an in-conversation discussion focused on the collaborative process that shaped the exhibition. Coming from distinct disciplinary backgrounds, Kasturi and Lad reflect on how their long-term collaboration evolved, and how their different forms of expertise and field experience informed one another at every stage of the project.

Drawing on archival research, ethnography, architectural history and contemporary photographic practice, the exhibition reveals the enduring presence of the descendants of Crown Prince Jahandar Shah and the fragile material and social landscapes they inhabit today. In this conversation, the speakers will discuss how historical research, spatial analysis, visual documentation and fieldwork were brought into dialogue, and how working collaboratively enabled new ways of seeing Banaras beyond dominant narratives of sacred geography.

The discussion will also reflect on the practical and intellectual challenges of cross-disciplinary collaboration, particularly within a politically charged context where Mughal heritage is frequently marginalised or contested. More broadly, the talk considers collaborative curatorial practice as a method for producing more nuanced, ethically grounded accounts of urban history.
The talk will be followed by an optional visit to the exhibition, taking place outside normal opening hours exclusively for talk attendees.

This event will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners working across history, architecture, visual culture and curatorial studies.

The event will be held at SOAS, and an email with the location details will be sent to attendees one day before the event.

About the speakers

Jateen Lad is an architect working on the frontlines of our ever-widening social, economic and spatial inequalities and the fragile environments they create. His multi-disciplinary practice was established in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, in Pondicherry, India, and is now based in Manchester. His local and global projects seek to dignify and strengthen marginalised communities and are entirely built by local people, who he trains on-the-job, enhancing their skills, confidence and livelihoods. His award-winning buildings are described as 'a force for social change' and have been widely published and exhibited. For more information, visit Jateen Lad's personal website.

Malavika Kasturi is Associate Professor at the Department of History at the University of Toronto, Canada, where she teaches South Asian history. Her research focuses on Banaras’s urban history, public memory, the history of households, and the relationship between religion and Hindu nationalism on which she has published extensively. Since 2010, she has conducted extensive archival and ethnographic research in Banaras, on the history of the Mughal descendants of Crown Prince Jahandar Shah, from which this exhibition draws. Her next book is Mughal Banaras: Jahandar Shah, the ‘Later’ Mughals and Public Memory.