Deepti Mulgund, Ph.D. (School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2019) is an art historian, with a specialization in nineteenth and early-twentieth century South Asia. Based on her doctoral dissertation, a book on art publics in colonial Bombay is underway. Deepti’s work engages with museum studies, institutional histories, art reception, consumption studies, urban studies and public culture, to produce critical social histories of art.
Most recently, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, as part of the ‘Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices’ programme, and was co-hosted by the Freie University, Berlin (2019-20). As a doctoral candidate, Deepti received the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Bi-Nationally Supervised Ph.D fellowship (2015-16), and was affiliated to the Humboldt University, Berlin. Through the India Foundation for the Arts Museum fellowship (2013, CSMVS), she had the opportunity to conceptualize curatorial schemas for historical collections of the Museum, in Mumbai. Prior to pursuing her research degree, Deepti worked for the Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum (2009-10), researching institutional history. As an assistant curator at the Devi Art Foundation, Deepti engaged with contemporary art, including on collaborative and process-led exhibitions such as, ‘Where in the World,’ (2008-09); she also conceptualized the early education and outreach programme for the Foundation.
In October 2021, she was selected as a participant to the Art Schools of Asia project by the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Deepti’s on-going research follows distinct trajectories: drawing pedagogy in the nineteenth century of industrial capitalism and empire, and picnics, as a modern form of leisure, fusing the consumption of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’; she sees these projects as being united by her longstanding interest in marking art’s dispersal into the social sphere.
