The Archives at NCBS, a public centre for the history of science in contemporary India, will celebrate five years with a series of activities, walk-throughs and talks on Saturday, February 17.
Visitors will also be able to browse through archival material released on the occasion, which will include papers pertaining to the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the notes and sketches of bird illustrators Ranjit Daniels and Carl D. Silva, the papers of the statistician and ecologist N.V. Joshi, records of B.S. Madhava Rao’s work with Max Born and the Archives’ first collection of a female scientist, Krishnaja A.P. “Our main focus this year is ecology and conservation,” says archivist Anjali J.R., adding that while the broad theme is ecology, it is, overall, an eclectic mix of material.
The Archives at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), is dedicated to holding institutional records and also be a collecting public archive for the history of contemporary biology in India. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
The ecosystem
Science, after all, cannot be decoupled from the environments that it inhabits, as Venkat Srinivasan, who heads the Archives at NCBS points out. While the Archive is a centre for science in contemporary India, triggering where the material comes from, elements of society, gender, hierarchy, labour, policy, practice, caste and class differentials and politics can also be gleaned from it, he says. “In the material, you will find histories of art, histories of labour practices, environmental movements, political movements...this is simply to say, we are all more than the science we may be doing,” he says.
File photo of the archives from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
And, as with any institution that contributes to preserving heritage and collective memory, the interpretation and sampling of the material it holds will, no doubt, be influenced by the viewers’ own identity and experience. “Hopefully, through the material that is preserved and how it is sourced, described, arranged and made visible, some of these messy intertwined aspects will come to the forefront,” says Venkat, who believes that archives should be part of the ensemble of spaces that the public sees as being their own. “Unless people challenge the Archive, it will not grow as an institution,” he says.
View of National Centre for Biological Sciences. | Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN
Breakfast Table
Another event highlight will be the launch of Breakfast Table, which won the Archive’s annual proposal call for exhibitions, which broadly fits the theme ‘Grow’ and uses archival material. “While the idea for the call has morphed over the last few seasons, the broader intent is that these exhibitions need to show some narrative at the intersection of history, archives, science and their own design or art approach,“ says Venkat.
Aparajitha Vaasudev, one of the artists behind Breakfast Table (Pragya Bhargava and Nausheen Khan are the others), says that they have chosen to focus on two scientists whose papers are now part of the Archives: Leslie Coleman and M.S. Swaminathan. “What we are addressing in this exhibition is that everything is connected,“ she says. “You can’t isolate food from the cultural fabric of a society.”
The Archives at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
For the uninitiated
Food, adds Aparajitha, works as a representation of collective history, inextricable from a society’s political, scientific, cultural and economic state, something the exhibition delves into using varied media. “The whole purpose of this work is to attract people who have absolutely no background in biology or art of any kind to visit the Archive and experience and learn something about the ramifications of India’s culinary culture.”
The event is free and open to all. To know more, log into https://www.ncbs.res.in/events/apls-archives-five
