Date with The Archive | Uncovering Histories in Business Archives | A Talk by Lakshmi Subramanian | November 05, 2026
How do business archives shape historical narratives?
Join us for a Date with the Archive with historian Lakshmi Subramanian as she reflects on business archives and the impulse behind their creation. The talk will focus on the growing interest among business houses in preserving their histories, and the opportunities and challenges this presents to scholars. Drawing on her own personal experience of working with the Godrej Archives, Lakshmi will explore questions about business history as a credible academic discipline and the role archives play in shaping historical narratives. She will also look at the ways in which these archives enable object and design histories, and how scholars could find meaning in materials that might extend beyond what their creators or custodians originally intended.
Uncovering Histories in Business Archives with Lakshmi Subramanian
November 05, 2026 | 06:30 PM IST
Register on Zoom or join us live on our YouTube.
Lakshmi Subramanian, Retired Professor of History, CSSSC, Kolkata and BITS Pilani, Goa has had a long and distinguished research and teaching career. She has worked extensively on India's maritime history as well as business communities. She also writes on Music, Performance and Nationalism and is well known for her 2020 work on Singing Gandhi: Music and Sonic nationalism in India. Her latest work is titled India Before the Ambanis (Penguin, 2025). She is currently Scholar in Residence, Godrej Archives and continues to teach and research extensively.
Image: From the Godrej Archives
Launched in 2018, The IFA Archive is a space that holds the diverse materials of the projects supported and implemented by IFA over the years, currently featuring materials from over 730 projects online at theifaarchive.org and in the physical repository housed in Bangalore.
Date with The Archive is a series of talks by artists and researchers across different practices who have used archives extensively for their creative work, to bring to focus the potential of the archive as a significant resource for artistic and scholarly explorations.
The IFA Archive is built with support from SP Lohia Foundation India and is currently supported by BNP Paribas India Foundation.