About

Dissent in Miniature is a series of graphic projects which reflects upon the tensions between Indian and British landscape paintings, looking to unsettle hegemonic spatial imaginaries.

The British colonial project in India saw a shift away from Mughal miniature paintings, towards representational techniques favoured by the East India Company. Given the multitude of cultural functions performed by miniature paintings – such as the illustration of cultural stories, mapping of journeys and pilgrimages, and recording of political events – control over this mode of representation was instrumental in culturally mediating processes of colonial domination. The resulting Company Paintings were not only used to survey and implement colonial landscape interventions, but also served as artistic products which reshaped local spatial norms.

All projects in the Dissent in Miniature collections draw upon publicly available images sourced from Wikimedia Commons to produce remixed graphics which juxtapose Mughal and British colonial landscape aesthetics.

The library of digital cutouts used to produce the remixed images is made available to support wider artistic reflections regarding the visual representation of postcolonial landscapes.