The exhibition is presented by the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, the Sanskriti Foundation and the Marg Foundation.

The exhibition offers a critical view of the role played by popular Indian imagery of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the construction of cultural, social and national identities. Images Nineteenth century India witnessed several major cultural and technological transformations - the pedagogy of the colonial art school; exposure to European pictures circulating in the Indian market; the advent of the techniques of engraving, lithography and oleography; the emergence of photography and the proscenium stage - that led to the growth of a new popular imagery. The colonial art school's emphasis on perspective and realism endowed the idealized, traditional imagery with a more tangible and sensual presence. In combination with influences from the newly introduced proscenium theatre, which used powerful iconic and narrative formations, and from photography, which could depict heightened corporeality and individuality, this engendered a new class of popular cultic, mythological and nationalist imagery. Mass production and circulation of this imagery became a potent instrument in creating and negotiating interstices between the sacred, the erotic, the political and the colonial modern.

Mass manufacture of images transformed the very nature of Hindu belief and worship. Through the work of artists like Ravi Varma, 'classical' Hindu mythology was revived, romanticized and circulated all over the country, providing a nation-wide homogeneity to the visual culture of Hinduism. Images including engravings, chromolithographs, oleographs, photographs, postcards and film posters will be on display. The exhibition demonstrates how printing and mass circulation of images widely influenced the nature of belief and worship in India and eventually acted as a powerful vehicle in strengthening the independence movement and the spirit of patriotism.