Friday 23 May 2025 - Sunday 2 November 2025
10:00 am - 4:30 pm
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery is delighted to present Tigers & Dragons: India and Wales in Britain, an extraordinary exhibition that delves into the deep-rooted connections between the Indian Subcontinent and Wales.
Co-curated with Dr. Zehra Jumabhoy.
Glynn Vivian at Night, Friday 23 May. Gallery open until 8:00pm
Nikhil Chopra performance, Friday 23 May, 10:00am – 6:00pm
Curatorial Welcome 6:15pm
Free, everyone welcome. No booking required
Tigers & Dragons explores the iconography of South Asian nations and Wales; examining how they have imagined themselves—or been imagined—over the centuries. If India was the Jewel in the Imperial Crown, could we argue that Wales was England’s first colony? As Wales struggles for its identity within ‘British-ness’, it is timely to re-assess the way it contributed to, benefited from and, even, suffered for Britain’s Imperial ambitions. The show investigates the British Empire’s legacy and its continuing relevance for Welsh identity as well as for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The exhibition features over 100 artworks – paintings, photographs, performances, textiles, sculptural installations and new media – by roughly 70 artists from Wales, England, India and Pakistan. Historic and contemporary loans are drawn from private and public collections, including National Museum Cardiff, National Library Wales, National Trust’s Powis Castle and the Bristol Museum’s British Empire & Commonwealth Collection. Loans are supported by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund. Created by the Garfield Weston Foundation and Art Fund, the Weston Loan Programme is the first ever UK-wide funding scheme to enable smaller and local authority museums to borrow works of art and artefacts from national collections.
The exhibition traces the social and political complexities of the India-Wales relationship. Highlighting Imperial connections (through war, trade and language), it also probes other equivalences. If Wales is England’s Internal Colony, as India was once an External one, what can we learn from comparing the two? The exhibition considers the visual symbolism of both Imperial subjugation (the Indian Tiger dominated by the Lion of Britannia; the Red Welsh Dragon pitted against the White Dragon of England) and national awakening. Just as Indian independence movements were inspired by ideas of Mother India, similarly Welsh nationalism clings to the skirts of Mother Wales.
New commissions by contemporary artists (such as Goa-based performance artist Nikhil Chopra) have been supported by CELF (national contemporary art gallery for Wales).
Glynn Vivian’s intersectional community textiles group, Threads, has been working with international artist Adeela Suleman, who lives in Karachi, Pakistan, and Swansea-based Menna Buss, to produce an artwork in response to Suleman’s own large scale tapestry, commissioned for the exhibition.
Dr Zehra Jumabhoy, Lecturer in the History of Art, University of Bristol, UK:
“Tigers & Dragons pivots around the central question: what do the Dragon (ie Wales) and the Tiger (ie India) share? In the light of ‘de-colonizing’ debates, calls for Welsh independence, and the rising tide of macho-nationalisms across South Asia (and, indeed, elsewhere) what better time to re-assess Britain’s Imperial past and its continuing contemporary consequences?
Karen MacKinnon, Director of Glynn Vivian Art Gallery:
“This extraordinary exhibition brings together artists from South Asia and Wales to explore an intersection from which together we can examine our shared pasts and our futures. These places are where many changing forces meet – not only where cultures clash and converse but where ideologies coexist, merge, separate.”
Sophia Weston, Deputy Chair of the Garfield Weston Foundation, said:
“The Weston Loan Programme empowers museums and galleries all over the UK to bring fascinating art and objects to local audiences, where they can be experienced through the lens of regional history and heritage. We are delighted to support this thought-provoking exploration of the connections between Wales and the Indian Subcontinent.”
The exhibition is curated by Glynn Vivian’s Exhibitions Officer, Katy Freer, and art historian Dr Zehra Jumabhoy at University of Bristol. Jumabhoy’s research was funded by a Paul Mellon Centre for British Art Curatorial Research Fellowship.
The exhibition is grateful for support from the Arts Council of Wales, Taimur Hassan Collection; Canvas Gallery, Karachi; Grosvenor Gallery, London; Chatterjee & Lal Gallery, Mumbai, and Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai. The accompanying book, with Tigers & Dragon’s Curatorial Essay by Zehra Jumabhoy as well as texts by Pakistani art historian Salima Hashmi and Welsh artists Iwan Bala and Peter Finnemore, will be published in collaboration with Hmm Foundation with a grant from Seher and Taimur Hassan.
The Threads project has been funded by Arts Council of Wales Create Grant.
There will be a full programme of workshops, talks and events throughout the exhibition, beginning with a performance by Nikhil Chopra on Friday 23 May.
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