Profile
Sria Chatterjee is Head of Research and Learning at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
An art historian and environmental humanities scholar, Sria’s research interests lie at the intersection of art, science, and environment. Her first book project provides a close look at the deep links between nationalism, agriculture, and the natural environment through the history of art and media in modern India. Sria leads the multi-year Climate & Colonialism research project at the Paul Mellon Centre. In 2020, she founded and led the award-winning digital project Visualizing the Virus.
Sria received her Ph.D. from the Art & Archaeology department at Princeton University in 2019 and was awarded the Charlotte Procter Honorific Prize Fellowship. In 2024, Sria returned to Princeton as a fellow at the Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University. Her work has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Max-Planck Kunsthistorisches Institute, the Terra Foundation, and others.
Sria served as Contributing Editor at British Art Studies from 2020–2022 and remains involved in the journal as editorial adviser. In 2023, Sria served as a judge for the Pen Hessell-Tiltman Prize for historical non-fiction.
Selected Publications
Political Plants: Art, Design, and Plant Sentience, Cultural Politics, Issue 19 (2023) 86–106
Contingent Contagion, Viral Theory, e-flux journal issue 30 (2022)
‘Museums, Climate, and Colonialism’, Museums Journal, the Climate Justice special issue (2022)
‘The Tropics’ in Words of Weather: A glossary, ed. Jussi Parikka and Daphne Dragona. (Onassis Foundation, 2022)
‘Abstraction & Belonging’ in Radical Landscapes: Art, Identity, Activism, ed. Darren Pih. (Tate Publishing, 2022)
‘The Long Shadow of Colonial Science’, Noema Magazine (2021)
‘Arts of Science in the Contact Zone' in Reading Objects in the Contact Zone, ed. Eva-Maria Troelenberg et al. (Heidelberg University Publishing, 2021)
‘Rethinking Midcentury Modern: A View from Postcolonial India’ in Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, Perspectives, ed. Claudia Mareis et al. (Valiz, 2021)
‘The Bauhaus’ in Twentieth-century Indian Art, ed. Partha Mitter, Parul Dave Mukherjee, Rakhee Balaram (Thames and Hudson, 2021)
‘The Arts, Environmental Justice, and the Ecological Crisis: A Provocation’ in British Art Studies, Issue 18. 2020
‘Intimacy without Mastery: Multispecies Justice and Knowing other Lifeworlds’ in Contemporary Political Theory. Co-written with Astrida Neimanis. 2020
‘Postindustrialism and the Long Arts and Crafts Movement: between Britain, India and the United States of America’, British Art Studies, Issue 15. 2020
‘Writing a transcultural modern: Calcutta, 1922' in Regina Bittner, Kathrin Rhomberg ed., The Bauhaus in Kolkata (Hatje Kantz, 2013)
‘Eine transkulturelle Moderne schreiben. Kalkutta 1922’ in Das Bauhaus in Kalkutta. Eine Begegnung kosmopolitischer Avantgarde, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau (Hatje Kantz, 2013)
‘People of Clay: portrait objects in the Peabody Essex Museum’, Museum History Journal, Vol. 6.2. 2013