The OA Club runs a small grants programme for OAs. OAs are invited to apply either forThe Personal Fund orThe Group Fund. * his summer, thanks to a generous OA Club Award, I was able to spend four weeks in India undertaking an internship. After completing my MPhil in Islamic Art and Architecture, I was keen to get some practical experience working in a museum setting as well as to see some of the art and buildings that I had studied during my Masters. When I discovered the Centre for Historic Houses (CHH) of India, which was established by Dr Esther Schmidt in 2019 and works with India’s erstwhile princely families to devise sustainable ways to protect their historic properties, it seemed too good to be true. The internship itself consisted of placements with CHH’s partner organisations: the Maharaja Jai Singh II Museum in Jaipur, and the City Palace Museum in Udaipur. Both are based in large palaces, and both continue to be supported by the descendants of those who built them back in the sixteenth century. Though both museums have extraordinary collections, government bodies, conservative trustees, and the punishing Indian climate all pose challenges to effective conservation and curation. Nonetheless, the commitment and enthusiasm of all the museum staff we worked with was truly inspirational and I learnt a lot, not only practical skills needed to manage a museum collection, but also the challenges and rewards of that work. As well as the work itself, a highlight for me was the opportunity to take part in excursions to see the buildings which I had studied at university. Not only the inevitable trip to the Taj Mahal, but the nearby Mughal shrine-city of Fatehpur Sikri with its extraordinary congregational mosque entered through the enormous ‘elephant gate’. I also was able to go inside the incredible state rooms of Rashtrapati Bhavan, originally the Viceroy’s house, but now the centre of a democratic and independent republic. India, however, is currently undergoing a dramatic shift, as the ideals of 1947 are slowly eroded by growing polarisation. Before the internship, a spokesperson for the BJP had attracted criticism for remarks made about the Prophet Muhammad. Shortly after I arrived, two men in Udaipur committed a gruesome murder in response to comments the victim had made on social media in support, prompting demonstrations and calls for a total economic and social boycott of India’s muslims. The atmosphere was such that a video I made for the museum in Udaipur – discussing the fusion of ‘Islamic’ and ‘Hindu’ elements in palace architecture – had to be taken off their Twitter account after only a matter of hours, in response to the outrage expressed. On the 75th anniversary of Indian independence, it was a shocking reminder of the way in which present-day issues can impact our interpretation of the past, reshaping narratives as a tool for whichever populists think that history is theirs to alter. ARCHIE WILLIAMS (2017) , recipient of an OA Club Award OAClub Awards T OA Club Awards *2023 applications should be submitted by 1 May 2023. Terms & conditions apply. Application forms can be obtained from the OA Club website. www.oaclub.org.uk Archie exploring some of the palatial rooms in Jaipur. The ‘elephant gate’ to the Friday Mosque in Fatehpur Sikri Rashtrapati Bhavan, the seat of the President of India Getting down to work dusting the old elephant howdahs G R I F F E N 2 0 2 3 | 4
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