Book Description

E/Merge: Art of the Indian Diaspora is the catalog for a special exhibition of the same name organized by the National Indo-American Museum (NIAM) to inaugurate its new Umang and Paragi Patel Center in Lombard, Illinois in September 2021. Founded in 2008, NIAM represents the full spectrum of the cultural, linguistic, regional, socio-economic and religious diversity of Indians living in the US. The museum builds bridges across generations and connects cultures through the diverse, colorful stories of Indian Americans.The exhibition was curated by Shaurya Kumar, Associate Professor and Chair of Faculty, , School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who also provided an essay for the catalog, along with art historian Dr. Karin Zitzewitz, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Michigan State University. The catalog features photographs of the work of the nine Indian American modern artists participating in the exhibition, as well as artists' statements, biographies and portraits. According to Kumar, "All [these] artists have moved past the oversimplified notion of diaspora and were arguably never there. They travel through multiple narratives of different nations and feel at home in the world, moving in relation to and often beyond their transnational roots." They are: Avantika Bawa, Sarika Goulatia, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Kaveri Raina, Nandita Raman, Surabhi Saraf, Kuldeep Singh, Neha Vedpathak, and Kushala Vora, and their works range from site-specific installation to deconstruction and transformation of objects, to film, sculpture and paintings. Several artists have invented new unique methods of working, such as Vedpathak's "plucking". Zitzewitz describes the work in the exhibition this way: "There is little outward reference to the particularities of the Indian diasporic experience or the circumstances of the time, but rather a deliberate turn toward abstraction." The catalog concludes with a brief history of NIAM and an exhibition checklist of works displayed at the Patel Center from September 2021 through March 2022. Major funding for the catalog, the exhibition, and associated programs was provided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.