Staying Connected #4 | Step into a Virtual Garden and meet Tasveer-e Urdu | April 30, 2020

When was the last time you took a carefree stroll through a garden? When did you last visit a library where you sat languidly and devoured one book after another? The tumultuous times of the COVID-19 pandemic have robbed us of such simple pleasures.

While we hope you are safe at home through this lockdown, in the Staying Connected Series by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) today, we bring you a virtual garden - Ars Botanica by Sita Reddy, and a visual library - Tasveer-e Urdu by Yousuf Saeed to brighten your day.

Ars Botanica by Sita Reddy is a botanical arts archive that highlights the sheer diversity of botanical motifs and designs in Indian art, craft, architecture and sculptural traditions. The website draws together the botanical art collections and traditions of south, central, and eastern India that were constructed through the mediations of the colonial Dutch, Danish, and British East India Companies from the 17th through 19th centuries.

Click here to visit the website and learn more about botanical art, a genre poised between the worlds of art and science, has historical roots running toward beauty as well as utility.

Sita Reddy received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Research and Documentation programme, made possible with support from Bajaj Group.

Image courtesy: Botanical print from the research on India's botanical art traditions by Sita Reddy.

Tasveer-e Urdu by Yousuf Saeed is a digital archive documenting diversity in the visual print culture of Urdu in India and South Asia. The archive not only hosts printed images from popular Urdu literature produced in the first half of the 20th century, but also much more textual information or metadata about each item, which can even be edited by other scholars. In addition to this, the website allows for select visitors to add material and images related to the theme on a continuous basis.

Click here to visit the website and learn when and why Urdu went from being a mainstream language reflecting the cultural plurality of North India, to one associated with Islam.

Yousuf Saeed received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Research and Documentation programme. He also received a grant from IFA, under the Arts Research programme to organise an international conference on the evolution of the Urdu language and its proliferation in popular culture.

Image courtesy: 'Mujrim' from the archive of popular visual arts in Urdu language by Yousuf Saeed.