Arna Jharna as a Desert Museum

in Module

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Yashaswini Chandra and Malini Saigal

Yashaswini Chandra is a historian specialising in the arts and cultures of Northern India, with special interest in the Western Himalayas and Rajasthan. She has a PhD from the Department of the History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.

Malini Saigal is a postgraduate in history and a graphic designer. She is also a trained botanical artist and is working on a series of artworks on desert flora.

Sahapedia is collaborating with Rupayan Sansthan, Jodhpur, with a view to revitalise the institution. A series of web modules on different aspects of the history and folk culture of Rajasthan and western South Asia is being produced as part of this collaboration. The research for the modules draws on, but is not restricted to, the archive of Rupayan Sansthan, and the corpus of work left behind by the founders, Komal Kothari and Vijaydan Detha. It includes contributions from eminent scholars and experts, many of whom have had a long and sustained engagement with Rupayan Sansthan. This module is one of the series. It focuses on Rupayan Sansthan's ethnographic museum, Arna Jharna, against its backdrop of the Thar desert.

Photo of Arna Jharna: The Desert Museum by Dinesh Khanna