Dear All,

The Department of Visual Arts invites you to a capstone thesis presentation by Nylaa Ahmad, a History major with a minor in Visual Arts, supervised by Professor Latika Gupta.

Titled “Architectures of Survival: The Sacred Object, Contested Space, and the Cultural Biography of Madin Sahib Shrine, Srinagar,” the thesis takes the locked door of Madin Sahib shrine as its central provocation and argues that the sacredness of a Kashmiri Sufi shrine is not a condition that can be administratively revoked. It proposes that sacred value is biographical, accumulated through six centuries of patronage, architectural elaboration, sectarian contestation, and communal memory and that administrative closure is one chapter in that biography, not the final one.

Based on fieldwork at Madin Sahib, research in the J&K Archives, and primary sources including Persian and Sanskrit chronicles, ASI records, and INTACH documentation, the thesis is located at the intersection of art history, Islamic material culture, and critical heritage studies.

Date: 8th May, Friday

Time: 10:00 AM-11:00 AM

Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/94569212493?pwd=5PjOW74RfZbw2zKfB667walm0EVR1S.1

Open to all

We look forward to your active participation in the presentation.

warm regards,

Visual Arts Department