Dr Diva Gujral
I am a historian and art historian specialised in twentieth-century Indian photography and visual culture. I am currently LSE Fellow in Twentieth-Century Indian and Global Imperial History at the London School of Economics.
Research
My doctoral thesis, ‘Picturing Non-Alignment: Photography, nation-building and identity in India, c. 1950-1975 (UCL 2021) framed non-alignment, independent India’s foreign policy of anti-colonialism and Afro-Asian alliance-building, as a method for understanding the diverse coordinates of Indian film and photography in the 1950s and 1960s. I am in the process of developing the central ideas of thesis into a monograph on Indian photography and film through the lens of non-alignment.
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My published academic writing includes a 2019 article on the Baroda photographers in the peer-reviewed journal Object and a book review in Oxford Art Journal in 2023. I have also contributed edited volumes to Indian photography. In 2022, I wrote about photography and nation-building for the edited volume Points of View: Defining Moments of Photography in India (KNMA, 2022). My chapter on Bombay photographers Hurrychund Chintamon and Narayan Daji was published in the exhibition catalogue for ‘Ouvrir L’Album du Monde’ at the Musée du Quai-Branly in Paris in 2023.
My research interests include global art histories; the cultural Cold War; photographic modernism; colonial visual culture; anti-colonial solidarity networks; and themes of postcolonial utopias and colonial legacies in South Asian visual culture.
Public Writing
In 2019 I co-authored the book Photography in India: A Visual History from the 1850s to the Present (Prestel Verlag), a pioneering volume of Indian photography from its colonial iterations to the present day. The book has been favourably received in popular press publications such as CNN and The Indian Express. I have written features on art and photography in Aperture, Scroll.in and Source; and have produced exhibition reviews for publications including Frieze and Critical Collective.
Curatorial/
Collaborating
I am passionate about reconciling my research with public spaces of display and pedagogy. In 2017, I curated “Photography at Play: Bhatt, Karia and Mohamedi in Baroda” for Jhaveri Contemporary in Mumbai, translating my PhD research on the Baroda-based photographers Nasreen Mohamedi, Jyoti Bhatt and Bhupendra Karia into an exhibition of mid-century photography. I have also been consulted by museums in India such as the Museum of Art and Photography, Bengaluru on pedagogical and curatorial projects.
I welcome the opportunity to collaborate on research, curatorial projects, panel discussions and conferences. If you would like to reach out, my contact details are listed below.
Address
M.10, Sardinia House
52 Sardinia Street
Lincoln's Inn Fields
London WC2A 3LZ