Curator’s Tour 4: Mughal Banaras (with Dr Malavika Kasturi)

Join Dr Malavika Kasturi for a curator’s tour of Mughal Banaras: Forgotten Histories in a Troubled Present, focusing on the archival and research foundations of the exhibition.

While Banaras, also known as Varanasi, is widely recognised as a Hindu pilgrimage city, the exhibition uncovers its often overlooked Mughal heritage and the diverse communities that have shaped its history and urban fabric. In this tour, Dr Kasturi will foreground the academic and curatorial research that underpins the project. Drawing on Persian chronicles, colonial records, family archives, oral histories, and visual material, she will trace how the exhibition was constructed through sustained historical investigation.

Particular attention will be given to the later Mughal presence in the city, especially Crown Prince Jahandar Shah and his descendants, examining how fragmentary references in texts and archives can be reassembled to recover marginalised histories. Dr Kasturi will discuss the methodological challenges of working across languages and dispersed archives, and reflect on how scholarly research is translated into exhibition narratives.

This tour reveals the archival, historiographical, and interpretative processes that shaped the exhibition’s curatorial framework.

Please meet Dr Kasturi in the Gallery Foyer, near the reception desk, five minutes before the tour starts.

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Host or Publisher Brunei Gallery, SOAS