Current exhibition: Paper Cuts - Art, Bureaucracy, and Silenced Histories in Colonial India

Launch event: Thursday 25 April, 6-8pm

Book a free ticket to the PAPER CUTS launch event.

Exhibition: 25 April - 12 July 2024, 10am-8pm, Mondays to Fridays only. 

Who gets remembered, and who forgotten? This exhibition examines a collection of works on paper made by British colonialists in nineteenth-century India. Seen in public for the first time, the collection is placed into dialogue with contemporary artworks by Ravista Mehra and Divya Sharma. PAPER CUTS critically reflects on the silencing effect of the colonial archive - and points toward a more equitable future.

More information

The British governed India by paper as much as by force. Reams of it circulated in the form of records, contracts, and trade receipts. Taxation and other methods of extracting wealth likewise relied on paper.

Paper also created a visual record. In 1851, Scottish engineer George Turnbull arrived in India tasked with building its first long-distance railway. While there, Turnbull collected drawings and watercolours by his colleagues, creating an archive that depicts the region from the perspective of the British engineers building the railway. Paper Cuts is the first time these images have been publicly displayed.

Like many colonial archives, the Turnbull Collection foregrounds the British while silencing the stories of the Indian people portrayed. How can we remember what has been forgotten? This exhibition invites two Indian artists, Ravista Mehra and Divya Sharma, to intervene through contemporary artworks. Combining past and present, we can create a more equitable future.

Paper Cuts is curated by Birkbeck PhD candidate Surya Bowyer.

Supported by the British Art Network, the British Society for the History of Science, and Birkbeck, University of London.

The Turnbull Collection was acquired in 2017 by the Science Museum Group, without whose support this exhibition would not have been possible.