Giolo’s Lament, Pio Abad (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Ashmolean Museum)

Dr. Tim Murray smashes imperial stereotypes of Asia through tastes and trades, in a 19th century Standard Willow Ceramic Plate from Josiah Spode's Staffordshire pottery. Adorning dinner tables across the world, Josiah Spode's Chinese-inspired ‘Standard Willow’ rapidly became the world's most popular ceramic pattern. Produced in Staffordshire from 1790, its blue-and-white pines and pagodas speak to Asia's ascendant economic and cultural status - and imperial European efforts to imitate and overtake China in the 19th century. Excavated from former settler societies as far as Australia, such tea sets are testament to the mutual expansion of the British Empire and the global ceramics market, connecting colonial territories with cultural tastes through new trading tactics, and aggressively advertised chinoiserie. Digging into the rise of mass-produced pottery unearths how European potteries came to provide the global standard and entry-point for England’s rapidly expanding consumer classes, subverting our contemporary stereotypes around low quality, mass-produced Chinese goods. But this particular porcelain also reveals the hairline cracks in imperial control in Asia, and Europe's fragile competitive edge in modern markets. PRESENTER: Dr. Tim Murray, Emeritus Professor in Archaeology at La Trobe University and Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. ART: Standard Willow Ceramic Plate, Josiah Spode (1800-1820). IMAGE: 'Standard Willow Ceramic Plate'. SOUNDS: Christian H. Soetemann. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

10 Maalis 202216min

A. A. Bastian navigates the commercial and Christian aspirations of Euro-American trading empires in 19th century Asia, through a Water Splotch from the Bay of Bengal in Levi Savage's ship diary. Hugging India's glistening Bay of Bengal, Euro-American ships like the Monsoon and Fire Queen carried goods and peoples to and from Calcutta, the meeting point of the British and Mughal empires. An emblem of the unique, long-distance aspirations of Euro-American traders, the ship speaks to the uneven distribution of knowledge and benefits in global supply chains. But a water-stained diary kept by one of the Monsoon's passengers, the American Mormon Levi Savage, reveals how such economic and religious missions were not all smooth sailing. Navigating these storms challenges the typical paths of European empires, exposing Asian traders’ power to attract and indirectly incentivise the construction of a European delivery network - their failure to fully foresee their rising racism and greed - and the very movements of empire. PRESENTER: A.A. Bastian, author of 'The Other Bayonet: A New Source to Frame the Second Anglo-Burmese War' in the Journal of Burma Studies. She is a regular reviewer at the Washington Independent Review of Books. ART: Water Splotch from the Bay of Bengal, Ship Diary of Levi Savage (1852-1853). IMAGE: ‘Savage, Levi vol. 1, 1852'. SOUNDS: Virlyn. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

24 Helmi 202215min

Dr. Mona Narain reimagines Britain through the eyes of the colonial Indian subject, via Elizabeth Hamilton's 1796 novel, Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah. Following the adventures of the fictional Indian Rajah Zāārmilla in London, Elizabeth Hamilton's Letters upends stereotypical narratives of the imagined east. Staged in a series of letters, her novel refocusses 18th century Britain through the eyes of the colonised, comparing cultures and challenges the Indian aristocrat's initial adoration of imperial Britain. From the 'benevolent' British East India Company to the Orientalist scholars of the Asiatic Society, Letters embodies Britain's bids to justify their presence in India, but also the public's ambivalence towards colonisation. Using Zāārmilla's outsider perspective, Hamilton scathingly satirises social ills closer to home, speaking to her own marginalisation as an Irish-Scottish, woman writer. PRESENTER: Dr. Mona Narain, professor of English at Texas Christian University and Scholarship Editor at ABO Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830. She is a Consultant Chair on American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Women's Caucus, and co-edits the Bucknell University Press Transits book series. ART: Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, Elizabeth Hamilton (1796). IMAGE: 'Translation of the letters of a Hindoo Rajah'. SOUNDS: Blue Dot Sessions. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

10 Helmi 202221min

Dr. Desmond Manderson lashes new layers atop Australia's colonial founding myths, through Gordon Bennett's 1991 painting, Possession Island. When Captain Cook planted the Union Jack on Possession Island in 1770, Australia was entirely subsumed within the British Empire. Colonial imaginings of this moment reinforced the legal myth around terra nullius, still propagated in constitutional classes today. Gordon Bennett whip-splashes alternative histories atop the time-worn tropes, exposing the hidden witnesses to violence at Australia's coming-of-age party. Possession Island perverts our expectations of empty, untamed lands, and collapses the strict divisions between aboriginal, colonial, and post-colonial art. Showing at the Tate Modern's 'A Year in Art: Australia 1992', the painting also challenges colonisation in the canon - from contemporary Australian artists like McCubbin, through to Jackson Pollock's American modernism. Part of EMPIRE LINES' Australia Season, marking the 30 year anniversary of the Mabo vs. Queensland Case (1992) and Tate Modern's A Year in Art: Australia 1992. Listen to the other episodes with Jeremy Eccles. PRESENTER: Dr. Desmond Manderson, Professor and Director of the Centre for Law, Arts and the Humanities at Australian National University. He is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. ART: Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett (1991). IMAGE: 'Possession Island/(Abstraction)'. SOUNDS: New Weird Australia. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

27 Tammi 202218min

Jeremy Eccles etches out the colonial and continued denial of discrimination against Australia's Indigenous communities, through Judy Watson's 2005 series, a preponderance of aboriginal blood. Sixteen black and white documents from the Queensland State Archives, dating back to 1866, map out Australia's discriminatory race-based system of citizenship rights. Now splattered with blood red ink by the artist Judy Watson, they stand central in the Tate Modern's latest show, 'A Year in Art: Australia 1992'. This little recognised year in Australian history witnessed the landmark Mabo Decision, in which the Indigenous Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo legally asserted his peoples' pre-colonial rights to their land. As a 'city Aboriginal', Watson's blood-stained book speaks to Britain's unique colonial aspirations for 'White Australia', the oft-silenced violence behind terra nullius, and the ongoing battle for social and historical inclusion still faced by Indigenous Australians. Part of EMPIRE LINES' Australia Season, marking the 30 year anniversary of the Mabo vs. Queensland Case (1992) and Tate Modern's A Year in Art: Australia 1992. Listen to the other episode with Dr. Desmond Manderson. PRESENTER: Jeremy Eccles, editor of the Aboriginal Art Directory in Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and a member of the International Association of Art Critics. ART: a preponderance of aboriginal blood, Judy Watson (2005). IMAGE: 'a preponderance of aboriginal blood'. SOUNDS: New Weird Australia. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

13 Tammi 202217min

Dr. Lily Filson reroutes religious loot through the 6th and 8th centuries, via the Teak Column of al-Qalis, produced in Yemen, and plundered for Saudi Arabia. A tall wooden column towers over pilgrims to the heart of the Islamic faith in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Installed around the 8th century as Islamic pious plunder, it is one the last surviving remnants of the Christian church al-Qalis, erected in Sana’a, Yemen over a century beforehand. Revealing unique religious motifs, mosaics, and materials from Yemen, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it stands as a silent witness to centuries of conquest and cultural exchange between the Christian Byzantine and Aksumite, and emergent Islamic empires. But as Saudi Arabia's campaign of aerial bombardment continues to destroy Yemen today, its tales of tolerance make a loud call to rescue the region and its historical records, before they are forever lost. PRESENTER: Dr. Lily Filson, Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. ART: Teak Column of al-Qalis, Mecca (6th Century). IMAGE: ‘Teak Column'. SOUNDS: Traditional Music Channel. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

30 Joulu 202118min

Dr. Tessa Murphy retouches European renderings of colonial Caribbean commerce in the 18th century, through Agostino Brunias' oil painting, Linen Market, Dominica. Painted around 1780, Linen Market, Dominica depicts a Caribbean port town teeming with commerce. Great ships and local Kalinago canoes straddle the coastline, as people of all races and classes and barter for carrots, calabashes, and callaloo, the new global goods of imperial exchange. Italian artist Agostino Brunias' bustling waterfront conveys the convergence of cultures in Britain's so-called Ceded Islands, acquired from France following its success in the Seven Years War. Brunias' image of abundance depicts the extraordinary and everyday exchanges of empire for Western consumption. glossing over the realities of slavery, social hierarchy, and interconnected Caribbean colonies. The artist's paintings and own biography still hint at the island's intertwined indigenous and imperial, colonial and Creole histories. PRESENTER: Dr. Tessa Murphy, Assistant Professor of History at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her latest book is The Creole Archipelago: Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean. ART: Linen Market, Dominica, Agostino Brunias (c. 1780). IMAGE: 'Linen Market, Dominica'. SOUNDS: Toybox. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

16 Joulu 202115min

For EMPIRE LINES’ 30th episode, we’re heading offline and out into the museum space - to SOAS’ Brunei Gallery, in London. Richard Gray is co-curator of their latest exhibition, Our Sophisticated Weapon: Posters of the Mozambican Revolution. Cashew nuts are a paradoxical symbol in Mozambique. Brought over from Brazil by 16th century Portuguese colonists, they were used to attract - and commit - Mozambican peasant farmers to compulsory cultivation. Yet they became a national icon for post-colonial Mozambique, peppering propaganda imagery from its independence in June 1975. Associated with abundance, Mozambique produced and processed over half the world’s cashew supply, which remained the state's greatest export until the 1980s. Kept illiterate under Portuguese rule, Mozambique's masses were mobilised using vivid visual art. The Frelimo government celebrated the industry's revival with colourful posters, symbolising the post-colonial promises of plenty, socialist internationalism, and a new humanity. But beyond propaganda, these posters reveal how artist collectives appropriated communist and capitalist graphic design, including comics, creating a movement which threatened those who sought to destabilise Mozambique from the inside out, like South Africa and Zimbabwe. Set amongst the sounds of Nampula province, co-curator Richard Gray traces the colonial history of the cashew nut to the neoimperial practices of international financial institutions today. Our Sophisticated Weapon: Posters of the Mozambican Revolution runs at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, London until 11 December 2021. Find out more about the exhibition online, read the catalogue of interviews with the surviving artists, and attend SOAS School of Arts' special seminar on 11 December 2021. PRESENTER: Richard Gray, postgraduate research student at SOAS University of London. He is the co-curator of Our Sophisticated Weapon and formerly a 'cooperante internacionalista' (internationalist co-worker), contracted as a teacher by the Mozambican government in the late 1970s. ART: Let Us Harvest All The Cashew Nuts, To Harvest The Nuts Is To Develop Mozambique, Alexandre Milhafre (c. 1979). SOUNDS: TRKZ. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines *CORRECTION: The war with Renamo caused around one million civilian deaths and displaced five million throughout Mozambique. Around one million were likely displaced from Nampula province, from where many went to Malawi.

2 Joulu 202139min