The British Museum Announces the South Asia Season

The British Museum is launching a celebratory season to mark the 70th anniversary of Indian independence. This will coincide with the India-UK Year of Culture announced in November 2015 by David Cameron and Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. The British Museum will bring together different strands of activity from spotlight tours at our UK partner venues to events in London and expand the original celebration to include all the cultures of South Asia.

The season includes: two spotlight tours, one of an important sculpture of Ganesha, the other on the theme of The music of courtly India to selected UK venues; An Object Journeys display at Manchester Museum, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund; and the continuing development of the joint British Museum and Manchester Museum South Asia partnership gallery; and long term loans at Greenway House in Devon and at the Oriental Museum in Durham.

At the British Museum, an important sculpture from the early Buddhist monument at Amaravati in southern India will feature as part of the Asahi Shimbun Display in Room 3 during the autumn, with an accompanying public programme. Another display will present a recently-acquired collection of 20th century popular prints from India. The year will culminate with the re-opening of the British Museum's Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery for China and South Asia and a major international exhibition India and the World: A History in Nine Stories will open in early November in Mumbai.

National programme activity

Spotlight tour of Ganesha (Horniman Museum, January-April 2017; Brent Museum, April-August; Manchester Museum, September-January 2018; Wardown Park Museum, Luton, Jan - April 2018)

The main focus of the display is a 13th century schist sculpture of Ganesha. At 119cm tall, this sculpture depicts many of the major attributes of the popular Hindu god; Ganesha is a corpulent figure and is shown holding a bowl of his favourite sweets whilst at the base of the lotus pedestal crouches his rat 'vahana' or vehicle. His anklets are of snakes, as is the sacred thread wound across his chest. The arch within which he stands is of a typical Indian decorative type with a lion mask ('kirttimukha') at the top and aquatic monsters ('makara') at each end.

Object Journeys display at Manchester Museum

February 2017

Manchester Museum is the first national partner of the British Museum's Heritage Lottery Fund supported 'Object Journeys' project. This display of Pakistani textiles and jewellery is co-curated with an inter-generational women's group from the organisation Community on Solid Ground. The group is exploring the South Asian collections of both museums. Embroidery and traditional textile adornment techniques are of great interest to the group, and they have chosen three textiles from what is now Pakistan from the British Museum collection to be shown alongside objects in Manchester.

In November 2015, the government announced £5 million to support Manchester Museum in creating a new South Asia gallery in partnership with the British Museum. Bringing together Manchester Museum's own South Asian collections and world-class sculpture, textiles and artefacts from the British Museum, the Gallery will explore the history and culture of South Asia and its relationship with communities in the North West of England.

In February 2017, there will be a planned object rotation at the Faith in Birmingham partnership gallery at the Birmingham Museum.

New Spotlight tour: Music of Courtly India (Derby Museum and Art Gallery, 6 May - 25 June 2017; Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, (30 June - 26 August 2017)

This new Spotlight tour will feature an album of ragamala paintings (c.1610), and a rare ivory sarinda (c.1700), a four-stringed instrument covered in intricate carvings of angelic winged figures, flora, and beasts in combat. These were both made in India for courtly patrons, and are accompanied by a further five ragamala paintings from the British Museum collection which feature forest-dwelling snake charmers, yogis, musicians and women of the court. Ragamala paintings are visual interpretations of poems which evoke the moods of classical Indian raga music, interweaving three art forms which were frequently patronized at court: music, poetry and painting. This pictorial genre was popular amongst Rajput and Mughal patrons in northern India, and Sultanate patrons in the Deccan (central-southern India). The ragamala album and the sarinda will be displayed in the new Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery for China and South Asia later this year.

A 2nd century AD sculpture of the seated Buddha in the Gandhara style (from present-day Pakistan) will continue to be shown at Greenway House, Devon. Objects from the Indus civilisation, found in Pakistan, including terracotta figures, pottery, stone blades and bracelets will be loaned to Durham Oriental Museum.

British Museum, London

The Asahi Shimbun Displays

Amaravati Sculpture (title TBC)

10 August- 18 October 2016 (dates TBC)

Supported by The Asahi Shimbun

Room 3, free

This Asahi Shimbun Display will focus on the Great Shrine at Amaravati. Founded about 200 BC, probably to house a relic of the Buddha, the Great Shrine at Amaravati in Southeast India flourished for over a thousand years. Slowly abandoned sometime during the 14th century, by the late 18th century materials from the site were being recycled for new buildings and temples. In the 19th century a series of archaeological campaigns recovered the surviving sculptures. Today, the pieces are shared across a number of museum collections in India and around the world. The British Museum houses more than 120 sculptures from Amaravati, which are housed in the Asahi Shimbun Gallery of Amaravati Sculptures reopening in November 2017. The collection forms the single most important group of early Indian sculptures outside the subcontinent.

Indian popular prints

July - September 2017 (dates TBC)

Room 90a, free

India as the land of human imagery will be highlighted in a display of popular prints of both sacred and secular type and dating from c.1890 to c.1950. These items, colourful and engaging but ephemeral, provide information on politics, religion and entertainment in a unique fashion. These prints, mostly lithographs, though there are woodblock prints amongst the early examples, come to the Museum as a generous gift from Claudio Moscatelli. While most of them are popular and were produced in thousands, a single album, dealing with the history of Indian music and written by the scholar and collector, Sourindro Mohan Tagore (a relative of the poet), reminds viewers of the range to which printing was put in British India.

Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery for China and South Asia

November 2017

The British Museum will reopen the Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery for China and South Asia in November 2017. The new display will be based on a chronological layout from 1.5 million years ago until the present day. The redisplay will allow the Museum to add new types of objects to the gallery such as paintings and textiles which need regulated conditions for display. These will complement the existing items on show, such as sculpture in stone and bronze. Updated interpretation, new lighting and design will allow this extraordinarily rich collection to be better seen and understood by the Museum's seven million annual visitors.

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International activity

India and the World: A History in Nine Stories

November 2017

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalya (CSMVS) will collaborate with the British Museum, and the National Museum in New Delhi, to present a landmark exhibition opening in Mumbai in November 2017 and transferring to New Delhi in March 2018. India and the World: A History in Nine Stories will showcase some of the most important objects and works of art from the Indian subcontinent, in dialogue with iconic pieces from the British Museum collection.

The exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of our sponsors, the Getty Foundation and Tata Trusts.