The project proposes to create a digital resource that will make available to the scholarly world watercolours of life in 18th century and late 19th century Burma from previously uncatalogued manuscripts in the Bodleian together with early 20th century photographs of life in Burma from the Pitt Rivers Museum. It would also unite Oxford’s collection of popular paintings from 19th century Bengal; the un-catalogued collection from the Bodleian and the paintings from the Ashmolean museum.

The joint resource will enable the display of materials from three different institutions within the context of an academic study environment that will be developed from the NOF funded Digital Shikshapatri project. It will be of relevance to a broad academic audience of visual and social anthropologists, scholars of Theravada Buddhism, art historians, and colonial historians.

Although not the primary focus of the resource, the project will also have relevance for members of the Burmese and South Asian diaspora and will help to address the cultural dislocation characteristic of such communities.

Link to online collection