Panel

6. Arts, (Digital) Media and Culture: Creativities, Contestations and Collaborations

Material Affinities and Representational Imaginaries

1 - Panther: Visual and Material Solidarities of Race and Caste

Friday, June 13, 2025

09:00 - 10:45 GMT

Location: MNB - Réunion 1

Presenter(s)

PM

Padma Dorje Maitland
Asian Art Museum, United States

Presentation Abstract
In his recent work, Archival Historicity/Dalit Panthers (2023), the Mumbai based artist Vikrant Bhise archives ongoing Dalit experiences and activism to combat pervasive caste discrimination. Painted on the covers of the Dalit Panther Manifesto from 1973, the expanding series features a recurring Black Panther motif, the iconic symbol of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP), founded in Oakland in 1966. The works accomplish a double narrative: They trace the history of the Dalit Panthers in India and the ways in which the Dalit Panthers sought to align themselves with the Black Panther Party. They also place the legacy of those histories within more recent movements, localizing events and calling to mind a longer record of international struggles and affinities as they play out in specific cities, locals, and regions. Thinking across Africa and Asia and their diasporas through issues of race and caste, this paper considers the work of contemporary artists whose practices rearticulates and queries ideological and aesthetic connections as the basis for an art historical methodology not promised on geographic divisions. Instead, it picks up on the idea of layers and palimpsests built across and over time to reflect a more fluid transnational imaginary.