Art Review
The Mughal Empire’s Paradise on Earth
An exhibition showcases the sophisticated cultural language developed in the Indian subcontinent from around 1560 to 1660 across the reign of three emperors.
Aditya Iyer
Aditya Iyer is an independent journalist and writer based in London who writes about identity, migrant politics, and culture.
Art
The Last Roar of the Lion of Punjab
Rather than his military prowess or finely crafted weapons, it was Sikhism that sustained Ranjit Singh’s empire.
Art
How Tropical Modernism Became a Tool of Postcolonial Nation-Building
A show hones in on the tension between colonial European ideas and local styles of architecture as India and Ghana gained independence.
Art
Carnival and Colonialism Converge in Hew Locke's The Procession
Locke's stunning, sensuous spectacle of pattern and color, just like the grand tradition of Caribbean carnivals, hints at sinister elements that undergird the whole endeavor.
Film
The 500-Year-Old Ghost of a Conquistador Wanders Mexico
The documentary/fiction hybrid film 499 uses a fictional character to speak to real-life contemporary colonized people.
Film
Raoul Peck's Frustratingly Incomplete Treatise on Colonialism
For all its bluntness, Exterminate All the Brutes never once utters the words “rape” or “capitalism.”
Opinion
UK’s Threat to Punish Museums for Removing Colonial Statues Is Colonialism 101
The British government's new “free speech champion,” Oliver Dowden, has threatened museums with funding cuts if they remove controversial statues.
Art
At British Museum, a Promising But Flawed Start to Grappling With Colonialism
“Empire and Collecting,” a new self-guided tour, reflects an attempt to help visitors understand the colonial origins of the collection.
News
UK Activists Call for Removal of Monument to 19th-Century Imperialist Cecil Rhodes
At Oxford University, the Black Lives Matter movement has renewed protests over sanitized public narratives surrounding the violent legacy of British imperialism.
Opinion
A Toppled Statue In Bristol Reveals Limited Understandings of What Decolonizing Requires
Protesters’ removal of Edward Colston’s statue didn’t attack history; instead it corrected how we write it.
Art
Remembering India’s Forgotten Artistic Masters
A new, first-of-its-kind exhibition in London spotlights painters associated with with Kampani Qalam, the Urdu name for the rich, hybrid art style associated with commissions for the East India Company.
Art
A Worthwhile But Flawed Reconsideration of Orientalist Art
The British Museum's Inspired by the East asks its audience to rehabilitate Orientalist art without ever focusing on what made it problematic in the first place.