Occult, orient and the colonial gaze

A visual research exhibition titled 'Occult Objects in India and England (1850-1940): Nuanced Perspectives' was organised at the Nandan Gallery of Kala Bhavana in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, from 25-29 August 2025.

- SHAONA BARIK

A visual research exhibition titled 'Occult Objects in India and England (1850-1940): Nuanced Perspectives' was organised at the Nandan Gallery of Kala Bhavana in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, from 25-29 August 2025. The exhibition explored the diverse ways in which some occult objects and certain practices associated with them impacted the socio-cultural relationship between Britain and India during the latter half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. How such objects often fostered diverse forms of collaboration and networks between England and India, leading to the collapse of racial and colonial hierarchies, was brought to focus.

Around twenty-eight panels were displayed showcasing the photographs of objects, newspaper cuttings, lists of index cards, cover pages of periodicals and books, etc. Occult objects stand for those items which were thought to have supernatural attributes, were associated with occult practices, were considered devious or cursed, and were imagined as capable of fulfilling secret wishes, dark desires which otherwise were considered taboo or were forbidden.

The exhibition portrayed how occult objects led to the movements of goods and people between England and India during the said time period. What sort of cultural assimilations, adaptations, and exchanges followed, got highlighted. The exhibition helped visitors understand how often, through those objects, oriental fantasies, stereotypes, and fetishes were asserted and reinforced.