Our guest speaker this year is Dr Zehra Jumabhoy, Lecturer, History of Art, University of Bristol - event will be chaired by Peter Bennett-Jones CBE.
What do the Indian Tiger and the Welsh Dragon share in common vis-à-vis the Lion of Britannia?
If India was the Jewel in the Imperial Crown, could we argue that Wales was England’s first colony?
How should Britain deal with its colonial past, internal and external?
As Wales struggles for its identity within ‘British-ness’, how should it acknowledge the way it contributed to, benefited from and, even, suffered for Britain’s Imperial ambitions?
This talk will consider these questions in the context of a major exhibition, Tigers and Dragons: India and Wales in Britain, which will take place at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, from May to October in 2025.
Tigers & Dragons has both a contemporary and historic element; spotlighting Wales-based practitioners alongside art from South Asia and its diasporas, serving as a platform for debates about ‘British’ heritage, decolonialisation and competing nationalisms. Powis Castle, and the tiger-themed, India-gleaned treasures of its ‘Clive Collection’, will feature in more ways than one.
This is a joint event with the Montgomeryshire Society / Cymdeithas Maldwyn.