From train tickets to flight boarding passes, Ambedkar features on ephemera across a range of fields.

Ambedkar through Ephemera, in collaboration with Azim Premji University, explores this exciting visual archive through objects not originally intended to last for more than a short time: calendars, posters, packing labels, Ambedkar Jayanti invite cards, social media posts, wedding invitation cards and music concert tickets. Besides enriching the repertoire of visual images of Ambedkar, such ephemera help convey the diverse spaces where people encounter Ambedkar, even if only fleetingly, and offer glimpses of the variety of effort engaged in preserving his legacy.

Gathered over the years from across the country, the range of ephemera seen in this exhibition invites us to imagine how their original users might have related to these materials with images and written texts as well as appreciate the micro processes behind the emergence of Ambedkar as an icon of social justice.

About the Panellists

Gopal Guru was professor of political science at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was also a visiting professor at Columbia University, Princeton University, Oxford University and University of Pennsylvania. He served as the editor of the Economic and Political Weekly between 2018 and 2023. Gopal Guru received the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies in 2013. He is the author of The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory (with Sunder Sarukkai, Oxford University Press, 2012) and the editor of Atrophy in Dalit Politics (Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, 2005), Humiliation: Claims and Context (Oxford University Press, 2009) and Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social (with Sunder Sarukkai, Oxford University Press, 2019).

Shivaji K Panikkar is an Art Historian specialised in Indian Art. He was the founder and the Dean, School of Culture & Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD) and Head, Department of Art History and Aesthetics, M S University of Baroda. His publications include Saptamatrka Worship and Sculpture: An Iconological Interpretation of Conflicts and Resolution in the ​‘Storied’ Brahmanical Icons (1997), Twentieth Century Indian Sculpture: Last Two Decades (2000, edited), Towards A New Art History: Studies in Indian Art (2003, co-edited), sequel volumes Art of Ancient/​Medieval India: Contextualizing Social Relations (2004÷2005, co-edited) and Articulating Resistance: Art and Activism (2012, co-edited).

Vikas Kumar is Associate Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. His research explores the interfaces between politics and statistics, economics and religion and Kauṭilya’s Arthasastra and other pre-modern texts. He is the author of Numbers as Political Allies: The Census in Jammu and Kashmir (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Waiting for a Christmas Gift: Essays on Politics, Elections and Media in Nagaland (Heritage Publishing House, 2023) and the co-author of Numbers in India’s Periphery: The Political Economy of Government Statistics (Cambridge University Press, 2020, with Ankush Agrawal). He curated the exhibitions Counting and Controlling Population: Postal Services, Census & Family Planning in Post-colonial India (1951 – 2011) (Bangalore International Centre, January 2023) and Baba Saheb: An Extraordinary Philatelic Journey (1966−2022) (India International Centre, New Delhi, June 2022) and co-curated the exhibition Reframing the Adivasi (India International Centre, New Delhi, August 2024, with Sangeeta Dasgupta).  He is a recipient of the Elizabeth Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies (2024).

In case of any queries, please reach out to bic@​bangaloreinternationalcentre.​org

Exhibition curated by