Talks
Art, Exchange, and Storytelling in Ancient Gandhara

Name: Art, Exchange, and Storytelling in Ancient Gandhara
Start: 2026-04-12T14:00:00-0400
End: 2026-04-12T15:00:00-0400
Location: Royal Ontario Museum

Date

Sunday, Apr 12, 2026 14:00 - 15:00

Location

Level B1,

Eaton Theatre

Admission

Free

Registration opens March 16.

Audience

Adults

Date

Sunday, Apr 12, 2026 14:00 - 15:00

Location

Level B1,

Eaton Theatre

Admission

Free

Registration opens March 16.

Audience

Adults

Join us for a talk that takes a closer look at the Gandhara collection at ROM through fresh research. Featuring works in stone and stucco, the program looks at how some of the earliest Buddhist images were created and how they moved across regions, traditions, and communities. Professor Seungjung Kim of the University of Toronto will introduce the talk by placing Gandharan art within the global context of cross-cultural interaction and exchange drawing on examples from the collection to address current questions in Buddhist art history. Moizza S. Elahi, who is currently finishing her PhD under Prof Kim, will then speak to the local dynamics of donative and devotional practice and their significance in shaping Gandharan art.

The talks will be followed by an on-stage conversation moderated by Dr Deepali Dewan, Dan Mishra Curator of South Asian Art and Culture at ROM. The program concludes with a public question and answer period, and the opportunity to engage with exclusive touchable 3D models scanned from objects in the Gandhara collection.

This program is generously supported by the Dan Mishra South Asia Initiative

Speakers

SeungJung Kim

SeungJung Kim is a former astrophysicist turned art historian whose work focuses primarily on the visual culture of ancient Greece. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto and serves as Director of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies. Her research also engages Gandharan art, phenomenological approaches to visuality, and the problem of time and temporality in art.

Moizza S. Elahi

Moizza S. Elahi is a PhD candidate and a Course Instructor in the Department of Art History at University of Toronto. She is also a member of the Mediterranean Archaeological Collaborative Specialization at U of T. Her work explores the arts and artefacts of ancient Gandhara through the lens of materiality and gender. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Moizza is also a member of the ISMEO Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan and has been participating in the ongoing fieldwork in the region of Swat since 2021.

Deepali Dewan

Deepali Dewan is the Dan Mishra Curator of South Asian Art & Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. She is also an Associate Professor (status-only) in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto, is affiliated with the Centre for South Asian Studies, and is a Senior Associate Fellow at Massey College. She is the co-editor of the online, peer-reviewed journal Trans Asian Photography. Her research spans issues of colonial, modern and contemporary visual culture, including topics such as art education, decorative arts and historiography.