Professor Ayesha Mukherjee (Department of English, University of Exeter) worked with Professor Amlan Das Gupta (Department of English, Jadavpur University, Calcutta) on an AHRC-funded project to create an online database exploring the cultural histories of famine and dearth in early modern India and Britain. The follow-on impact project ‘Famine Tales from India and Britain’, led by Professor Mukherjee, in collaboration with Jadavpur University and the British Library, showcases the modern re-appropriation and narration of selected episodes of early modern famine by traditional scroll painters from Naya village in West Bengal and by new wave, urban graphic artists in Calcutta. The artists’ responses to the historical and literary data will now be exhibited in the Forum at the University of Exeter from Tuesday 9th to Thursday 11th November 2021 (10am-4pm) and will be explored in a reflective workshop running on Saturday 13th November (11am-1pm) at the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Exeter. Both exhibition and workshop are open to academics, students, families and local residents.

At our exhibition, we would like to raise awareness for current issues of food security in both India and Britain, and so will be collecting donations for two charities, Calcutta Social Project Food Aid Program in India and Feed Our Community Project in Exeter, Britain. To find out more about our charities, please see their links below.

Exeter: Feed Our Community project - Feed Our Community

Calcutta: Calcutta Social Project Food Aid Program - Calcutta Social Project

For more information about the research project and the exhibition, visit Famine Tales from India and Britain or find us on Twitter and Instagram at @faminetales, Facebook: Famine Tales from India and Britain.

To book onto our workshop, please visit: Famine Tales Workshop