In new partnership, an opportunity to grow
Sugata Ray, left, and Ivy Mills were among the collaborators involved in Love Across the Global South.
The idea for the exhibit originated last year, while librarian Liladhar Pendse and Ray were participating in the Townsend Fellowships program, which enables humanities-related research involving collaboration across disciplines and departments.
Before this exhibit, the curators had never worked with one another on a project like this. Each brought a unique perspective and set of contributions.
Ray, for example, is particularly interested in “the Indian Ocean, trade immigration, ideas and objects traveling across this vast space.”
Mills is a Senegalist, specializing in Senegalese culture — and is the only scholar she knows who studies video dramas in Wolof and is looking at how Bombay cinema has influenced these low-budget films.
Adnan Malik is curator for South Asian collections in the South/Southeast Asia Library.
And Pendse wears many hats, as librarian for East European, Eurasian, and Latin American studies. Working as a group “allowed us to collaborate and grow,” he said.
Given their distinct yet, at times, overlapping areas of expertise, they were able to create an experience that each one alone could not.
“It’s a collaboration that offers a much more expansive vision,” Ray said.
The exhibit runs through March 1, 2018, in Doe Library’s Brown Gallery.
Mills and Ray hang a framed poster in the Brown Gallery in Doe Library on Oct. 3, 2017.
Story by Tor Haugan
Photos by Cade Johnson for the University Library
Oct. 16, 2017
