Sarada Natarajan
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Medieval Indian Sculpture and Iconography
- Indian Art Historiography
- Art and Art History Pedagogy
- Historical Nature-Culture Relations
Biography
Sarada Natarajan did her PhD and Masters in Arts in Art History from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat.
For her Postdoctoral project at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, Sarada worked on theorising materiality and artistic agency in the context of medieval Indian stone sculpture.
Her most recent research project was for an interactive website on Halasuru Someshwara Temple, to be launched by Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Bengaluru. She also contributed to the INTACH team dossier that proposed Hoysala temples for nomination as world heritage sites, a document that was submitted to UNESCO by the Government of India.
Sarada taught in the Fine Arts and Theatre Arts departments of the University of Hyderabad for over a decade. She has also taught courses at Shiv Nadar University, Ashoka University, and Krea University. She mentored young artists and curators for three successive College Biennales of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi.
A trained Carnatic vocalist, Sarada illustrates for children. She has done numerous illustrations for the Azim Premji Foundation-supported magazine Teacher Plus.
An ongoing collaboration with eminent ecologists allows her to combine her love for forests with her fascination for medieval sculpture.
Courses
The Many Pasts of India’s Present
An inquiry into the 'origin' questions of India: Geological, ecological, cultural and political
Publications
Chapters in Edited Books
- Natarajan, S., & Sinha, A. (2022). Primate performances in a contact zone: Interspecies communication and benefaction in a synurbising forest of Southern India. In C. Turner et al. (Eds.), Performance at the Urban Periphery: Insights from South India (pp.191–211). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003023852 – 16/primate-performances-contact-zone-sarada-natarajan-anindya-sinha
- Natarajan, S. (2015). The visual and the material in Coomaraswamy’s Art History. In S.G. Kulkarni & K. Chauhan (Eds.). Art, Aesthetics, and Philosophy: Reflections on Coomaraswamy (pp. 138 – 154). DK Printworld. https://dkprintworld.com/product/art-aesthetics-and-philosophy/
- Natarajan, S. (2007). Indian art history and the great divides. In A. Uma, et al. (Ed.), The Study of Aesthetics: The Indian Perspective (pp.90–108). Allied Publishers.
Monograph
- Natarajan, S. (1997). Watering the Neighbour’s Plant: Media Perspectives on Female Infanticide in Tamil Nadu, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai. http://59.160.153.188/library/node/417
Book Illustration Project
- De, Aditi, et al. (2020). Eleven Stops to the Present: Stories of Bengaluru. (S. Natarajan, Illus.). INTACH Bengaluru Chapter.