Water Histories of South Asia: The Materiality of Liquescence (Visual and Media Histories)

This book surveys the intersections between water systems and the phenomenology of visual cultures in early modern, colonial and contemporary South Asia. Bringing together contributions by eminent artists, architects, curators and scholars who explore the connections between the environmental and the cultural, the volume situates water in an expansive relational domain. It covers disciplines as diverse as literary studies, environmental humanities, sustainable design, urban planning and media studies. The chapters explore the ways in which material cultures of water generate technological and aesthetic acts of envisioning geographies, and make an intervention within political, social and cultural discourses. A critical interjection in the sociologies of water in the subcontinent, the book brings art history into conversation with current debates on climate change by examining water's artistic, architectural, engineering, religious, scientific and environmental facets from the 16th century to the present.This is one of the first books on South Asia's art, architecture and visual history to interweave the ecological with the aesthetic under the emerging field of eco art history. The volume will be of interest to scholars and general readers of art history, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, urban studies, architecture, geography, history and environmental studies. It will also appeal to activists, curators, art critics and those interested in water management. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of plates 8 List of tables 12 List of contributors 13 Foreword 14 Acknowledgments 17 1 Introduction: the materiality of liquescence 18 PART I Vision and space, ca. 1500–1750 34 2 The shape of Babur’s lake: architecture and water in the central Indian frontier 36 3 Water is a limited commodity: ecological aesthetics in the Little Ice Age, Mathura, ca. 1614 54 4 Lakes within lake-palaces: a material history of pleasure in 18th-century India 77 PART II Surface and depth, ca. 1750–1950 110 5 Photos of the ocean: pearl fisheries, British colonialism and the Gulf of Manaar 112 6 Deep time as intimate stranger: the age of water in the religious imagination at Girar, 1855 136 7 From nallah to nadi, stream to sewer to stream: urban waterscape research in India and the United States 152 PART III Materiality and infrastructure, ca. 1950–2015 176 8 Water: its meanings and powers in the Indian Sufi tradition 186 9 Developmental aesthetics: modernism’s ocular economies and laconic discontents in the era of Nehruvian technocracy 210 10 A critical look into the existing practice of water governance in cities: the case of Chandernagore 234 11 Making water media in 21st-century South Asia 251 PART IV Mediations 268 12 The religious and affective actualities of the Yamuna: conversations with Pandit Premchand Sharma, Nigambodh Ghat, Delhi 270 13 From Bundi to Delhi: water harnessing systems in semiarid regions 285 14 You always step into the same river! 301 PART V Afterthoughts 320 15 Cosmographia universalis: environmental crisis and the water aesthetics of global South Asia 322 Index 334 "This book surveys the intersections between water systems and the phenomenology of visual cultures in early modern, colonial, and contemporary South Asia from the 16th century to the present. Bringing together contributions by art and architecture historians, artists, architects, geographers, maritime historians, and environmental activists from India, Europe, and the United States, the volume situates water in an expansive relational domain. It covers disciplines as diverse as literary studies, environmental humanities, sustainable design, urban planning, and media studies. The chapters explore the ways in which material cultures of water generate technological and aesthetic acts of envisioning geographies and make an intervention within political, developmental, and cultural discourses. A critical interjection in the sociologies of water in the subcontinent, the book brings art history into conversation with current debates on climate change, and examines the artistic, architectural, engineering, religious, scientific, and environmental facets"-- Provided by publisher