Background

The department of the History of Art and Material Culture is currently globalising its undergraduate curriculum by building into it a focus on South Asian art, architecture and design. The Department is situated at DMU's Leicester site. Leicester has large Asian communities and boasts Hindu and Jain temples, mosques, and the 'Golden Mile' - a parade of Asian shops, as well as museum collections, providing a rich source of South Asian arts. The Faculty of Arts and Design is also home to PRASADA (Practice, Research and Advancement in South Asian Design and Architecture) which until 2000 focused mainly on research, design projects and postgraduate teaching and supervision. However, from early 2000 the work of PRASADA was integrated more fully into undergraduate teaching in the History of Art and Material Culture department. The department now builds on a strong body of expertise in areas relating to Indian art, architecture and culture including Indian temples, and Indian aesthetics. PRASADA staff currently teach a Part 2/3 undergraduate module on Aspects of Indian Art, Architecture and Design. Due to wider curriculum changes that involve moving from a modular system to a more linear system with longer running courses, it was decided that support from GLAADH should be used to globalise existing courses rather than introduce new modules.

Aims and Objectives

Pull together the resources available in the university and in the local area to enhance current teaching and modules. The project has two strands:

1). To build on the existing introductory course to South Asian art and architecture and to introduce a focus on South Asian contemporary crafts in an existing level 2 and 3 module on Contemporary Crafts. In particular South Asian jewellery and textiles will be examined - linking into the local collections in Leicester.

2). Make accessible the visual archive of PRASADA. Originally founded by Adam Hardy, the PRASADA archive consists of some 4,500 images of South Asian art and architecture taken by PRASADA members. The aim is to use software such as Access for the database and to make it available on an open-access website. Copyright should not be a problem since the images belong to staff backing the project.

Longer-term aims are to develop collaborative digitisation and cataloguing projects with local museums.

Resources

The project will access craft expertise and material found locally in the city of Leicester, including shops as well as architecture and museum collections.

Timescale

Groups Affected

Dr Richard Fynes. Students at undergraduate level 2 and 3 in the Faculty of Art and Design. Access to the digitised PRASADA archive will be limited to participants in the GLAADH project.

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