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Karibu sana.

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Cover of Time Magazine, summer of 1947 following India’s partition. 

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Miriam Makeba singing to a group of men involved with ‘Drum’ magazine, a publication of urban black culture in 1950s apartheid South Africa. 

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Imran Qureshi, “Self Portrait” (2009)

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"The Dappled Light of the Sun IV" by Conrad Shawcross filters and obstructs sunlight amidst the trees at Regent's Park (at Frieze London)

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Queen Victoria had an assistant from India for the last fifteen years of her life named Abdul Karim. He would teach her Urdu, which is how he earned the title 'munshi', which means teacher or clerk. She wrote in a letter to the Duchess of Connaught in 1888: "I am so very fond of him... He is so good and gentle... and is a real comfort to me."

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In 2001, photographer Thomas Dworzak "found" several heavily retouched and elaborately staged photos of the Taliban in a photo shop in Kandahar. Dworzak bought the prints from the local man who took the photos and eventually had them published in a book. The photos and the book are ironically very popular among gay men in the west because of their camp appeal and "glam" style.

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Roustam Raza was sold into Mamluk slavery at age thirteen and gifted to Napoleon in 1798. He served as his aide and bodyguard for many years up until his exile, and was "of all living men, the closest to Napoleon." (at National Art Library)

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Heteronormativity: a piñata? (at V&A Friday Late)

[belledj]

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The nīkah of His Highness, Prince Karim al-Husseini, Aga Khan IV to Begum Salimah, 1969

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stronger than pride

[dastaanewatan]

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"Everyday" (2009) presents a collection of kitchen items such as utensils, pots, buckets, and containers. The tray is an enlarged plate and the objects are placed to one side just as rice is often placed as an accompaniment to daal. The artist, Subodh Gupta, sees these objects as part of the everyday make up of India: "The poor, the middle classes, and the rich use them at home. In this country, how many people have the utensils but they starve because there is no food?" (at Tate Modern)

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That we worry about the question of agency in one direction but never consider the impact of “the East” on “the West” as an issue of denial of agency for Europe is a colonial/anticolonial legacy that continues to inform our current thinking.

Afsaneh Najmabadi

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