MAP collaborates with the Peabody Essex Museum

The roots of the Peabody Essex Museum date to the 1799 founding of the East India Marine Society, an organization of Salem captains and supercargoes who had sailed beyond either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The society’s charter included a provision for the establishment of a “cabinet of natural and artificial curiosities,” which is what we today would call a museum. Society members brought to Salem a diverse collection of objects from the northwest coast of America, Asia, Africa, Oceania, India and elsewhere. By 1825, the society moved into its own building, East India Marine Hall. In collaboration with the Peabody Essex Museum, this episode looks at a photograph by Jyoti Bhatt from MAP’s collection and a painting by Ram Kumar from the Peabody Essex Museum, their juxtaposition bringing forth an exploration of modernity and post-colonial identity in urban and rural India.