The Ghent Centre for South Asian Studies (GCSAS) is proud to announce a special lecture-event as part of the Internationalisation@Home programme of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy:
FROM MUSEUM TO FILM AND BACK: A JOURNEY THROUGH JAINISM, ITS ART AND LIVING TRADITIONS –
Film screening and discussion with curator-filmmaker Harsha Vinay
This event celebrates Jain studies at Ghent University with a screening of five short films by Harsha Vinay exploring key aspects of ritual and material culture within Jainism — pilgrimage, asceticism, manuscript traditions, ritual death, and everyday lay practices.
These films originally accompanied the exhibition Being Jain: Art and Culture of an Indian Religion (2022-24), a cross-disciplinary and multimedia collaboration between the Museum Rietberg, Switzerland, CERES, Germany, and Green Barbet Ltd., India.
Jainism is a millennia-old religion that originated in India and is now practiced worldwide, with Belgium home to the largest Jain community in continental Europe.
Faculty members and curator-filmmaker Harsha Vinay will explore innovative ways of experiencing, documenting, and mediating religious traditions and art—an exploration that builds on Ghent University’s long-standing tradition of Jain studies and the course Art and Archaeology of South Asia, now launching a brand-new module on Jain Art.
The screening and discussion will take place during the class hour of the course Art and Archaeology of South Asia and are open to everyone — no prior registration required.
- When: Wednesday 12 November 2025, from 12:30 to 14:30 (12:30-2:30 pm CET)
- Where: Auditorium H, T2, Campus Ufo, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Ghent
- Contacts: letizia.trinco@ugent.be; ev.declercq@ugent.be
Trailer
Guest speaker’s bio
Harsha Vinay is the Founder Director of Green Barbet Ltd, India, with over ten years’ experience in curating exhibitions for international museums, cultural programming, administering an artist residency, production of research publications and documentary films.
Harsha holds an MA from the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a BFA in Painting from College of Fine Art, Bangalore. From 2013 to 2015 he worked at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore, as Assistant Curator in-charge of exhibitions, programmes and outreach. Prior to this he was the ‘Specialist Writer & Subject Expert’ on the curatorial team of the ICCR sponsored exhibition ‘The Body in Indian Art and Thought’, Bruxelles 2013. Here, Harsha was entrusted with research and collation of documentary films from the archives of the IGNCA and Sangeet Natak Akademi on the living traditions of India.
In 2016, Harsha Vinay moved to Varanasi as Director of the Alice Boner Institute, a residency space for academic and artistic research founded to keep alive the legacy of Swiss artist and scholar Padma Bhushan Dr. Alice Boner. Here he organised artist residencies, exhibitions, symposiums, and cultural events with a range of international institutions.
In 2018, Harsha started his own cultural enterprise in Bangalore – ‘Green Barbet: a company for art and culture in South Asia‘, which provides consultancy and advisory services for museums and cultural organisations within and outside India. Under the aegis of this company, Harsha Vinay has co-curated and collaborated on large exhibitions at Museum Rietberg, including ‘Alice Boner – Artist and Scholar’, 2015-18, ‘Mirror – The Reflected Self’, 2018-19, ‘Being Jain: Art and Culture of an Indian Religion’, 2022-23 and more recently ‘Ragamala – Pictures for all the Senses‘, 2024-25.
Harsha has organised numerous international programmes such as Dialogues on Alice Boner Symposium, January 2018, large public events and workshops in Zurich and Varanasi for a diverse audience. Harsha is co-editor of the publication series Alice Boner Dialogues, initiated in 2020. His experience includes facilitating exchange workshops for traditional artisans for the Crafts Council of India, Chennai and documenting craft traditions of Varanasi through short demonstrational videos by artisans. His interests also extend to art education, capacity building and integrating communities with museum spaces.
Harsha lives and works between Varanasi and Bangalore.
This event is funded by the Department of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University, and organised in collaboration with the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, and Green Barbet Ltd, India.
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